How to Lead Change in a “Changeless” School Environment

EDA6215

April 3, 2010

Bernadette Harris
University of North Florida
College of Education & Human Services
Graduate School
 For anyone in the field of education who is aspiring to delve into school

leadership at some point in their career, it is very likely that they will face the

challenge of being tasked with implementing important changes in the school to

which they are appointed. Unfortunately, there is often an “if it’s not broken, don’t

fix it” attitude toward change, especially from tenured employees who have grown

quite comfortable with things “the way they are!” As much as a new leader to a

school would like to accommodate all of his/her new employees’ wishes, the

expectations in an age of continuous improvement and high stakes testing demand

that leaders utilize strategic methods for bringing about change in their schools.

Research has shown that carefully constructed planning is vital for change to

be effective, measurable and results-producing! I will attempt, on the pages that

follow, to briefly introduce and outline some very necessary components of

successful school improvement, especially in a “change-reluctant” environment.

I. Identifying the Need for Change:

Before a school can begin to plan any type of improvement, it must rely on

practical evidence to demonstrate where its strengths and weaknesses exist. To

make this evaluation with any sense of validity, the school must analyze its

available data to look at student achievement over time. The minimum time frame

for evaluation should be three years.

It is important that the school concentrate on specific areas, by grade level,

student sub-populations, program implementation assessments, and any other data

pertinent to the individual school that will create a profile for the new leader as to

where the “gaps” exist.

With this preliminary evaluation and its results, the leader must begin to

solicit internal support from faculty and staff using informal meetings, interviews
and/or questionnaires that ask for substantial feedback on what has and has not

worked in the past. The leader then would share the results of these “surveys,” as

well as his or her preliminary evaluation of data and begin to form an improvement

committee.

II. Strategic Planning:

Strategic planning can be defined as “the process by which an organization

envisions its future and develops the necessary procedures and operations to

achieve that future. The vision of the

future state of the organization provides both the directions in which the

organization should move and the energy to begin that move.”[Hodge, 2010.]

 Phase I: “Buy-in”: “If we always do what we’ve always done, we will always

get what we’ve always gotten” [Robbins, 1980.] In order to gain “buy-in”

from faculty, staff and support personnel, as well as from the external

publics, a leader must have indisputable evidence!

 Invite Input, Feedback & Discussion: At this point, the leader would

want to open the discussion and invite candid input and feedback from

stakeholders who will be part of the committee leading change. This will give

the new leader a realistic picture of how much additional support he or she

needs to gain, as well as a feel for what might motivate those in opposition.

 Present the positive: (research based ideas for change): The leader

should have some well-researched products to present briefly in gaining

support from the committee. For example, this would be an opportunity to

introduce data on a program like R.T.I. (Wright, 2007) and emphasize the

research regarding its success in producing gains in student achievement,

standardized test scores and compliance with I.D.E.A. law.

 Determine School Philosophy: At this stage, the leader will begin to work

with the improvement committee to determine the school’s philosophy. In

doing so, the leader will look at the school’s history and culture, as well as

the community’s expectations for the school.

 Vision Statement: Once the school philosophy has been determined, it is

used to write the vision statement. What is the entire school community’s

vision for the school?

 Mission Statement: With this vision in mind, what is your mission? The

team should consider their main mission and purpose for being part of this

school community.

 Environmental Scanning: Both the internal and external environment of

the school must be examined. This is done through the use of surveys,

interviews and meetings with staff, faculty, parents and members of the

external community. The leader’s objective here is to listen and examine the

type of environment that surrounds them.

 Data Analysis: Identify Gaps: At this point, a thorough analysis of

carefully disaggregated data is examined by the school improvement

committee to identify gaps between where the school would like to be (the

vision) and where they are now, focusing specifically on student

achievement. The forms of data used would be determined by the

committee. They would need to identify what types of data are and are not

useful to them in determining their goals and objectives. The data should

also be disaggregated sufficiently to provide useful information, but not

redundancy or useless information. For example, a school with 100% African

American student population would not need to disaggregate their data to

 include a subgroup of African American students. When disaggregating data,

subgroups should represent no less than 15% of the total student population,

if the data is to be considered useful.

 Set Goals & Objectives: Now the leader and committee are ready to

determine their goals and objectives for their strategic plan. These should be

designed using S.M.A.R.T. (Drucker, 1954) criterion. This means that the

goals and objectives must meet all of the following. They must be:

 Specific

 Measurable (including a valid instrument for tracking progress,

including regularly administered assessments and data analyzed

for success)

 Achievable (attainable in a reasonable amount of time)

 Realistic (with the tools, resources and population)

 Time-bound and Tangible (accountability)

 Develop Strategies to Achieve Goals & Objectives: The committee

must now decide what methods, programs and strategies to incorporate to

help them achieve their goals in the prescribed time frame. They will look at

their resources (financial and human), decide how much and what type of

professional development will be needed for faculty and staff, what methods

and tools for intervention they will use and who will be responsible for their

implementation and assessment. Next, they will insure that their goals align

with the standards and benchmarks prescribed by their state and district, as

well as compliance with I.D.E.A.

 Prioritize: Usually as the strategy development phase begins, committees

will often recognize that they may have more initial goals or objectives in

mind than they can implement at once. For this reason, they will sort these

goals by priority, according to their already identified philosophy, vision and

mission statement. They must determine which objectives are critical to

school improvement, and which are less critical, although beneficial. Next,

they will perform a cost and budget analysis and match this against their

priority list of objectives to begin the next phase.

 Action Plan: Effective action plans are designed using STRATEGIC

THINKING

“Formal strategic planning calls for an explicit process for determining the

firm's long-range objectives, procedures for generating and evaluating

alternative strategies, and a system for monitoring the results of the plan

when implemented. During each of these steps, it is important that a

systematic procedure be used to gain commitment of those who will be

affected by the plan. These steps are summarized in Figure 1 (Armstrong,

1982.)
 As the figure indicates, the processes for strategic action plans are not

stagnant, but instead continually interact and interrelate.

 Assessment & Evaluation: The committee should take particular

care in selecting tools that will be used to assess success. The

assessments should be both valid and reliable. A valid assessment

measures what it is designed to measure. The items should match

with the interventions and strategies being implemented in order to

truly measure their value. To be reliable an assessment should

produce the same or similar results if given to more than one

population, given the same method of assessment and same strategies

and interventions. For these reasons, the committee must carefully

select assessment tools that are proven to be both valid and reliable.
 Finally, the committee must evaluate the results of the assessment to

determine how the current plan is working, and what areas need to be

revisited.

Conclusion:

Perhaps the one key component to successful school improvement, especially in a

changeless minded environment, is one that the researchers have neglected to

include in the strategic planning model. That is based on the idea that one’s

perception is their reality. Our expectations are our reality. If, as educators, we

push forward carefully planning and progressing, but all the time doubting not our

own ability to succeed, but rather our students’, then true success is not likely to

occur. Attaining “buy-in” is a true challenge. Attaining genuine buy-in,

based on the honest, unchangeable belief of those involved that they are

true catalysts of change, and that change is not only possible but

determinable and an absolute reality, requires passion and perseverance.

References:

Armstrong, J. S. (1982). Strategic planning and forecasting, in Kenneth Albert (ed.),

The Strategic Management Handbook, McGraw-Hill, N.Y.), pp. 2-1.

Drucker, P. (1954). The practice of management. New York: Harper & Row.

Hodge, W. (2010). Strategic planning. Retrieved document from University of North

Florida Course syllabus EDS6130 on April 2, 2010.

Robbins, A. (1987). Unlimited power. Ballantine.

Wright, P. W. & Wright, P. D.(2007). Special Education Law, 2nd ed. Virginia: Harbor
House Law Press.