This document has been formatted for printing from your browser from the Web site of the Illinois Association of School Boards.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE --This document is © copyrighted by the Illinois Association of School Boards. IASB hereby grants to school districts and other Internet users the right to download, print and reproduce this document provided that (a) the Illinois Association of School Boards is noted as publisher and copyright holder of the document and (b) any reproductions of this document are disseminated without charge and not used for any commercial purpose.
Illinois School Board Journal
May/June 2007
Getting the buy-in drives school reform
by Carol L. Votsmier
Carol L. Votsmier is director of communications for Springfield School District 186 and a member of the Illinois chapter of the National School Public Relations Association.
Motivated by federal and state No Child Left Behind legislation, Springfield School District 186 convened a series of meetings with secondary level educators to explore what high school might look like in the future to best meet the needs of all students.
Initially, the meetings revolved around analyzing data that indicated, despite elementary schools sending students on to middle school with higher reading skills, student achievement growth stagnated once those students entered the secondary environments.
What Springfield needed was not only a way to increase student achievement, but a commitment from everyone involved to remedy the problems. The challenge was an opportunity for a public relations effort to get people talking about the problem as the way to finding a solution.
These conversations, which drew 75 people together four times a year, were conceived as a way to change the way the district was doing business. They were also a way to start people talking both internally and externally so that all stakeholders — from the board room to the classroom and out into the community — would feel involved and buy into the changes that needed to be made.
Without a total buy-in, school reform efforts face an even steeper uphill battle.
Recognizing the problem
The first step toward any reform effort is recognizing the problem. And because change often can be difficult, the district enlisted the help of Patrick Dolan, a former high school and college instructor, who is well known for his model for transforming schools "from hierarchical, top-down structures to 'learning communities' in which 'stakeholders' — teachers, parents, students and community members — are empowered to make a greater number of strategic decisions."
Dolan, who has been quoted on school reform in The Illinois School Board Journal numerous times since 1998, suggests that the classic high school model is designed for adults, not students. Most high schools "are cognitive silos where the kids come, get their 50 minutes and go to the next class," he said. There is little engagement and few established relationships with students.
A lack of relationships can lead to some students dropping out of high school. If they stay in school, the traditional high school model does not work well for them or the adults in the building. And even if they do graduate, they often require remediation for even the most basic college classes.
After a visit to Kansas City, Kansas, in 2003, teachers and administrators at Springfield Lanphier High School recognized the sobering reality of a lack of achievement at their own school and were determined to make changes.
An entire year of planning resulted in building small learning communities known as "Freshman House." Freshmen learn in a separate wing from the rest of the school population, faculty members have common planning time and all adults in the building are expected to build relationships with students through advisory periods twice a month. Lanphier's leadership team, and its staff as a whole, continue to track and monitor student progress throughout the restructuring. Their efforts today focus on classroom teaching and learning practices in reading literacy for all students.
Eventually, these efforts branched out through the district and became the "High School/Middle School Conversations." District and union leaders joined representatives from the middle and high schools to collectively determine ways to incorporate strategies and promising practices to create a positive school culture, increase academic rigor, provide student supports, facilitate high quality relevant professional development and realign resources to improve student achievement.
Dolan was instrumental in "pushing" the system, at both the district and building levels, to think and work differently.
In addition, through the work of "Focus on Results" — a 10-year-old improvement framework that allows districts to customize their reform strategies — District 186 schools have developed process models to support the implementation of school improvement efforts.
As teams, professional development has helped schools to develop an instructional focus, identify promising instructional practices, develop aligned professional development and realign resources.
As individuals, teachers and administrators have learned what makes a good assignment and how to look at student work in order to evaluate the levels of rigor in course content. Walkthroughs and data displays assist each school to regularly monitor student progress.
Much of the conversation this school year has concentrated on providing push and support for students placed in Advanced Placement or "weighted" classes that they may not have originally chosen. AP classes result in exposure to a more rigorous curriculum aimed at arming students for success in both college and career.
The support comes as schools use data to target non-achieving students and provide academic interventions. All three Springfield high schools have implemented programs such as:
Next Steps
After watching teams in Kansas as well as wading through its own challenges, the district has learned at least three lessons about high school reform:
First, it is not an easy undertaking, and sometimes it is necessary for a system to be hit with a hard dose of statistical reality to admit changes are needed for students.
Second, buy-in at every level is crucial. Everyone — from the boardroom to the classroom — must be on the same page about what has to change.
Third, relationships with families can be the tipping point for student achievement. Parents want their children to succeed, and we must continue to give them the message that education is the way out of poverty.
High school reform efforts include initiatives, programs, strategies and learning. While all these things are important pieces of the puzzle, none can be successful in isolation.
And the realization, too, is that all reform efforts take time. While District 186 has seen a decrease in its dropout rate (from 2.6 percent in 2002-03 to 1.9 percent in 2005-06), ACT scores that are part of the Prairie State Achievement Exam are still slightly below state averages. But the work continues.
For true reform success, districts must create strategic, aligned plans based on research and reflective of a college-going culture that has high performance expectations for every student and adult … and public relations efforts will be key to getting the buy-in needed for that success.