unrise Elementary is located in the Springfield School District, a large district that has been under pressure in recent years to improve student achievement. As noted in the last issue of Connections, new leadership in the district office is not supportive of Sunrise’s school reform efforts. The new superintendent has been urging principals to encourage their teachers to teach to the state-standardized test. He advocates after-school tutoring and pullout programs as ways to help students who need additional instruction. The latter directly conflicts with the school’s CSR program philosophy of inclusion. He has also initiated a new math program in the district, which the teachers are not happy about.

Principal Carolyn Smith came to Sunrise from Hilltop, a high-performing, large elementary school where she had been the assistant principal at that school for eight years. Joseph Higgs, the longtime principal at Hilltop, held traditional views of how schools should be run, what type of professional development should be offered, and how teachers should work together. Having spent most of her administrative career with Principal Higgs, Ms. Smith adopted many of his attitudes and strategies.

"Young people only go through school once. They deserve—some people would even say they have the right—to learn to read and do mathematics and learn social studies and see themselves as competent learners." Dennis Sparks, executive director, National Staff Development Council

Ms. Smith was hired as principal with the hope that she would bring to Sunrise some of the ideas and programs that helped make Hilltop successful. She knew the problems at Sunrise would be challenging. However, her experiences at Hilltop did not prepare her for the sometimes chaotic atmosphere that existed at Sunrise and in the Springfield district.

Discipline was a problem at Sunrise that needed to be dealt with immediately. Ms. Smith attributed part of this problem to some of the staff members who had lowered their expectations of students as the community evolved from a middle-class community to one where poverty was commonplace. Many of the teachers assumed that these families did not care as much about education, and Ms. Smith knew that not much would change at the school until teacher attitudes changed and new alliances were formed with parents. She personally cared a great deal about the students and worked closely with the counselor to help make certain the basic needs of the students and their families were met. While important, this took up a great deal of Ms. Smith’s time.

Although grade-level teams at Sunrise were supposed to meet twice monthly, Ms. Smith did not require the teams to report back to the entire group during monthly staff meetings. Instead, she met from time to time with the grade-level team leaders for updates. The effectiveness of the grade-level teams and the amount each team discussed instruction and student learning varied by grade level. As often happened at whole staff meetings, many of the grade-level teams spent time discussing routines, school procedures, and the mechanics of special events such as field trips or schoolwide assemblies. Although student achievement or implementation of new practices related to the school reform program were occasionally discussed, typically grade-level team meetings had little impact on the school’s reform efforts. Two exceptions were the second and third grade teams, which functioned more effectively than the other teams–they spent time discussing practice and student learning. Not surprisingly, these teachers felt more positive about their teaching and student progress than did other teachers at the school.

One of the second-grade teachers commented on how her team worked. "We provide a lot of support to each other. If I am having a problem with a particular student or parent, then I bring it up at our team meeting. We discuss the situation, and I usually come away with a couple of solutions. We share lesson plans a lot and often spend some time talking about what our model consultant has taught us."

This is quite different from the sentiments of a fourth-grade teacher who says, "If our instruction is not working for a child, it is up to us as individuals to change our instruction, although sometimes I am not certain what I need to do to make it better."

Ms. Smith, accustomed to expecting teacher independence, asked teachers to draft their own professional development plans in addition to the training provided by the model developer. Ms. Smith says she did this because "new teachers have very different needs than veteran teachers." She also believes each individual has a better grasp of what he or she needs in the way of training.

The teachers wanted and needed additional technology training but felt the district would be unsupportive of such requests. The new superintendent established district professional development sessions related to the new math program and required staff members from each school to attend. These have been usually scheduled after school or to begin during the last hour of the school day. A Sunrise teacher sighed, "It is really hard to learn new things at the end of the day–the majority of district staff development is after school and most of us are just worn out."

Ms. Smith has encouraged teachers to begin keeping their own portfolios, a practice that she and Mr. Higgs had undertaken successfully at Hilltop. "I realize my teachers need to start thinking more positively about their work, and use something besides standardized scores as a measure of progress," says Ms. Smith. She made a presentation at one of the staff meetings and discussed the purpose of the portfolios, showing her own as an example. Several staff members have enjoyed beginning to develop their portfolios, but others just see it as "one more" requirement to meet.

Sunrise staff members rely on the trainers from the model developer’s office to provide them with feedback on their progress. They spend very little time assessing their progress when the model trainers are not visiting but seem to spend a lot of time complaining to each other how much trouble the reform program is. Although the consultants have encouraged Sunrise staff to observe each other and provide feedback when implementing new techniques, very few Sunrise teachers report observing other classrooms. Typical comments included that of a long-time Sunrise teacher: "Most of my free time is spent planning and grading. I don’t really feel that I need to sit in other classrooms."

According to Brian Hammond, the consultant from the model developer’s office, "Sunrise was actually making some progress before they decided to abandon their reform program. It was very difficult for them see the advances they had made. Our office felt they showed promise, even though some aspects of the model were not being implemented as they should have been." He points to increased student enthusiasm and improved student behavior in some classes as progress.

After two years of implementing the reform program, stagnant test scores disheartened the Sunrise staff. One teacher angrily said, "Many of us have changed the way we teach; we’ve all changed how we keep class records because of the computers; we’ve changed principals; we’ve changed superintendents. There is constant pressure on us, and it is too much."

Because Sunrise staff members are so disheartened over the progress of implementing their comprehensive school reform program, most of the staff felt relieved to give up on the program, although some teachers thought they had changed their instruction and activities for the better.