A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

The shift to shared decision making, responsibility, and authority creates new opportunities and pressures for many school staff. On issues surrounding curriculum and instruction, teachers bring their technical training and classroom experience to the table. Strategies for productive collaboration in planning and teaching, however, pose a challenge for some. For issues of school governance--i.e., running the school--teachers seek strategies for efficient management and shared decision making. Administrators contribute their training and experience in these areas, but they struggle to share authority and facilitate conflict resolution.

Three strategies seemed key to building a school culture that nurtures teacher collaboration and shared decision making. First, successful school-based reforms developed ways for school staff and administrators to focus on significant changes needed in the school. Second, the school reformulated the roles and authority of teachers and administrators to facilitate shared decision making for goals, plans, implementation, and monitoring. Third, the schools designed quite different allocations of staff, resources, time, and space to promote the joint work of staff.

When the pieces came together, teachers and administrators reported newfound enthusiasm and rapport. "We're a family." "We're in this together." The advice below draws on their experience.

1. Find Ways for Teachers and School Staff to Collaborate on Significant Changes Needed in the School

• Informal arrangements

• Councils

• Committees

The ways staff collaborate may be informal and unstructured, growing from an innovation piloted by a few enthusiasts. In other cases, such as South Mission High's Effective Schools approach, formal committees and procedures are created as part of a programmatic reform blueprint. The creation of a leadership council or some form of school-based decision making was quite common in the case study schools. Committees and task forces focused on specialized areas of interest and expertise. The format of interactions appeared less important than the degree to which school staff felt ownership--that they initiated or controlled the change process. The surveys and interviews revealed that two-thirds of school-based reform efforts were initiated at the state and district levels, but the most successful ones were designed and coordinated on a day-to-day basis by school staff. Certainly, the mere existence of these mechanisms to stimulate interaction does not guarantee that involvement will take place, but the successful reforms studied devised a number of promising strategies.

Cicely Elementary's reforms began when eight teachers volunteered to pilot an alternative science curriculum. To participate in the experimental program, the program required that the entire staff agree to support the pilot teachers in their effort. The principal worked to get this commitment for the first eight teachers. The pilot teachers made a three-year commitment and began by participating in a two-week training session in the summer to develop the theme for the year. The district augmented the grant that funded the summer training with two to three release days per month for additional training and coaching. District staff development days were also provided to school staff for inservice training on related curriculum content and instructional methods. As the pilot teachers developed their team approach, they spread word of the program to their colleagues. In the third year, over 70 percent of the faculty participated in the program. Cicely also has brought the staff closer together with two retreats, which included support staff and parents. Funded by a grant from a private corporation, the first retreat focused on developing a school vision and building consensus around a set of reform initiatives. These activities are carried forward throughout the school year by a leadership team of administrators, teachers, classified staff, and parents. Teachers at Heartland have ongoing opportunities to collaborate on a variety of instructional innovations. A typical pattern for the introduction of a new approach is for one or two teachers to seek specialized training in it and then to pass the strategies on to their colleagues. Teachers pursue training opportunities in their own areas of interest. Cooperative learning, for example, was started and sustained by the efforts of two teachers who serve as cooperative learning "teacher coordinators" for the rest of the staff. Mastery learning, a newer effort, is the pet project of a teacher and the principal. The teacher is piloting several mastery learning units in her own class; the principal is enlisting other teachers to expand the pilot in the future. Heartland's biweekly instructional-staff meetings have been an important mechanism for coordinating these innovations. Teachers discuss new ideas and brainstorm about existing programs. By supporting and channeling teacher energies effectively, the principal has assembled an impressive roster of change efforts and a school culture where collegial innovation and collaboration are the norm.

2. Seek Ways to Reformulate the Roles and Authority of Teachers and Administrators

• Staff development

• Curriculum and materials

• Budgeting

• Personnel

• Shared decision making

• Shared school managment

• Team teaching

• Administrator-facilitators

The pattern of teacher involvement in school-based decision making was made possible by a growing movement among districts to devolve more authority to the school level. More than half the districts in the national survey sample have given schools more authority in the areas of staff development and selection of curriculum and materials. A relatively high percentage of districts have given schools more discretion over scheduling and student assessment; fewer than a third of the districts, however, have been willing to hand over authority in areas related to budgeting and personnel action. A small percentage of districts also grant schools waivers from various district and state requirements, such as use of norm-referenced, standardized tests.

In most of the schools visited, the principal's role vis-a-vis teachers, central office staff, and peers was being redefined, in some cases with a struggle. At South Mission High, although teachers had an organized voice in the decision-making process, their input was considered solely a recommendation to the principal, who had final authority. At one rural elementary school, teacher involvement in school affairs was limited to the classroom. The principal was the organizational officer and shared none of the administrative powers with the teachers. In schools granted more authority by districts, principals gained a greater degree of control over important budgetary and personnel decisions. Authority to hire teachers gave some principals a new opportunity to build consensus and further their visions. At the same time, school-based reform also often diluted the principal's authority by giving teachers more responsibility for school-level decisions. Including teachers in shared school management has helped them to feel more professional and has raised morale.

Shared responsibility for student learning has also changed the roles among teachers and between teachers and principals. Teachers are no longer the sole arbiters of what happens in isolated classrooms; rather, team teaching arrangements involve teachers in planning and teaching together. In some schools, administrators were recast as facilitators with responsibility for supporting teachers.

Teacher input into school matters is not new, of course, but charging teachers with responsibility for assessing needs, determining the school's direction or focus, proposing changes, and seeing that they work is far less common. Furthermore, giving teachers authority to enact their recommendations is a significant change in the governance of many schools.

Arbor Elementary has a long-standing reputation for innovation.It was the first school in the district to take on the Effective Schools reform. The new principal spearheaded the shift to participatory management, expanding the authority of the decision-making team beyond that of the Effective Schools planning teams, which was limited to Effective Schools objectives. According to the principal, there is no facet of her job in which the team is not involved, despite team members' initial reluctance, even fear, at taking on roles with increased responsibility. Over time, the team has begun doing scheduling, budgeting, and interviewing secretaries. The principal opened the previously locked supply closets and said, "This is your school. You run it." When the principal delegated authority to hire a paraprofessional, she was challenged by the teachers. She explained that the staff would have to work with whoever was hired. She sat down with them and helped to make up the interview questions. Now the team routinely interviews people for nonteaching positions, and the district will allow schools more voice in teacher hiring next year. If the principal is off campus, the team handles emergencies. School staff volunteer or are nominated to serve on the participatory management team. The teachers report feeling completely involved in their school's reforms. Although the districtwide committees make curricular decisions, most of the Arbor teachers serve on one of the committees.

3. Consider Reformulating Staffing, Resources, and Time and Space to Increase Staff Collaboration

• Provide common planning time

• Fund joint planning

• Reallocate administrative budget

• Reassign support staff

• Share classroom and labs

The third set of strategies for nurturing productive collegial interactions in school-based reforms changed staffing patterns and resource allocations. Teachers from different disciplines, grades, and specializations were obtaining common planning time. Reallocation of administrative funds supported additional joint planning. In some cases, administrators, specialists, and support personnel were assigned to support classroom teachers. Teachers participated in deploying funds and resources to meet reform goals. Class schedules were revamped to allow for extended team teaching. Teachers shared classrooms and resource rooms.

Empire High School has made major changes in its administrative structure and instructional arrangements. By coordinating administration of both the high school and the middle school, administrative positions were reduced, and the remaining administrative posts were changed to facilitating "coordinators." Also, some administrative support staff were reassigned to help teachers with paperwork. This "flattened" hierarchy underscored the role of administration as supportive of teachers and instruction, rather than supervisory. The reorganization of instructional arrangements has increased the joint work of teachers at Empire. Teacher teams work with two divisions of students. Four "core" teachers (math, science, English, and social studies), special teachers as needed, and rotating fine arts teachers work together and share a common planning period. "Macro scheduling," a form of block scheduling, will be implemented, with two hours of history and two hours of math each day, followed in the second semester by two hours of English and two hours of science. At Cicely Elementary, administrative changes and instructional rearrangements also support teacher collaboration. When a vice-principal position became vacant, the principal created two part-time position--a Coordinator of Restructuring and a parent liaison. The school also reorganized classrooms into "quads" in which four teachers work with 100 students in a variety of teaming arrangements. In each quad, two rooms are used to teach an integrated science curriculum; the other two rooms serve as science and technology labs.

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