Background

Sunrise Elementary is located in the Springfield School District, a large district that has been under pressure in recent years to raise student achievement. Many of the Sunrise staff members have been at the school for 15-20 years, and have watched the neighborhood change from a largely white middle-class neighborhood into a more diverse blue-collar neighborhood. The faculty has a history of being congenial. Groups of teachers get together often after school hours and for the most part, seem to enjoy each other's company. In fact, some of the teachers who have been at the school for a long time enjoy reminiscing about past students and events and even relish passing on school traditions, such as an annual end-of-year teacher skit.

Sunrise has seen a succession of four principals during the past 10 years. Carl Davis, the third principal, initiated the reform program. He was committed to making time for the staff to work together collaboratively and to ensuring that all staff members had a voice in making decisions related to the school—including decisions regarding curriculum and instruction.

Carolyn Smith, the fourth principal at the school, joined them about a year and a half into the reform process. She came to Sunrise from Hilltop, a high-performing, large elementary school where she had been the assistant principal for eight years. Joseph Higgs, the long-time 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.

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. The district had also experienced a change in leadership. A new superintendent had been urging principals to encourage their teachers to teach to the state-standardized test. He advocated after-school tutoring and pullout programs as ways to help students who needed additional instruction. The latter directly conflicted with the philosophy of inclusion supported by the CSR program that Sunrise had adopted. He also initiated a new math program in the district, which the teachers were not happy about.

The Implementation Process

Ms. Smith did not want to change things drastically for the faculty at first, so she agreed the reform program should stay in place. Confronted with the additional work that a fairly new reform program required and with getting to know her faculty, staff, and students, Ms. Smith admitted she was somewhat overwhelmed.

Discipline was a problem at Sunrise that needed to be dealt with immediately. Ms. Smith attributed part of this problem to some 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 much about education. 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. Though important, this took up a great deal of Ms. Smith's time, so she had less time to spend visiting classrooms or working with faculty members.

When asked about their school vision, the staff at Sunrise, by and large, did not feel there was a vision in place. Although a vision had been established under the leadership of previous principals, the recent change in leadership left teachers feeling adrift. A 10-year veteran teacher at Sunrise believed that the teachers individually held visions of focusing on the students and doing what was best for them. However, she added that in the last year or two they had trouble seeing where they were going. "Right now," she said, "I don't think we have a vision. We are stumbling, trying to find it. I feel very frustrated." Another teacher said, "There used to be a vision. It was very evident—to get kids to be successful in everything—but that has been pushed back."

At Sunrise, grade-level teams were supposed to meet twice monthly, however 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. Without a vision to guide them and lacking a leader who emphasized teamwork, the staff found it difficult to work together as a group.

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 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 implementing new practices were discussed occasionally, typically grade-level team meetings had little impact on the school's reform efforts.

One fourth-grade teacher observed, "Collaborating is our weakest point." A young teacher who had taught at Sunrise for three years said, "It is a sink-or- swim type of thing. I had to make major mistakes and learn from them. The facilitators [from the model developer's office] helped us a lot, but now they only come to our school four times during the year."

Two of the grade-level teams—the second- and third-grade teams—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 offer 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 was quite different from the sentiments of a fourth-grade teacher who said, "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 believed 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 superintendent established district professional development sessions related to the new math program and required staff members from each school to attend. These were usually scheduled after school or began during the last hour of the school day. A Sunrise teacher commented, "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 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," said 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 had enjoyed beginning to develop their portfolios, but others just saw it as "one more" requirement to meet.

Sunrise staff members relied on the trainers from the model developer's office to provide them with feedback on their progress. They spent very little time assessing their progress when the model trainers were not there, but seemed to spend a lot of time complaining to each other how much trouble the reform program was. One group of teachers had been very vocal about their dislike of the reform program while it was underway. Several others mentioned that this group did not interact much with other teachers, which was unusual at Sunrise given the past congeniality of the staff.

Although the consultants encouraged Sunrise staff to observe each other and provide feedback when implementing new techniques, very few Sunrise teachers reported 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 to 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 pointed to increased student enthusiasm and improved student behavior in some classes as progress. He added, "Many of the Sunrise teachers had made real progress in incorporating technology into their lesson plans, even though they felt uncomfortable doing so."

Compounding their turmoil, the Sunrise staff members were disappointed when they learned that their students' state-mandated standardized test scores had not improved. 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."

Members of the vocal group of staff opposed to the CSR program began lobbying Mrs. Smith to end the program. She agreed that it would be best if they ended the reform effort at mid-term and focused their energies on teaching to the standardized test, to see if that would help improve their scores.

Because Sunrise staff members were so disheartened over the results of implementing their comprehensive school reform program, most of the staff felt relieved to give it up, even though some thought they had changed their instruction for the better.