Problems and challenges are inevitable when implementing a comprehensive school reform program, no matter how well a program is planned. By monitoring and checking progress throughout the implementation process, we're able to identify problems, challenges and concerns, and address them quickly. Catching problems early ensures a smoother, more successful implementation and can result in an improved program. Monitoring and checking progress can also serve as a source of encouragement to teachers—they will be reminded that changes are being made, that the school is progressing toward its vision of comprehensive school reform.

Checking progress can be accomplished in a variety of ways—formal and informal; qualitative and quantitative. Dennis Sparks explains how principals can incorporate different methods of monitoring and checking progress:

"Principals can check progress in a number of ways—some of them informal and some of them more formalized. They can be visible in the hallways and in the classrooms of the school by doing walk-throughs of classrooms or more extensive classroom visitations so that they have a sense of the challenges teachers face as they try to implement new strategies. They can be looking at student work with teachers to see if the quality of the work is changing as a result of the new approaches being used. They can look at data from across classrooms—formalized data that may be in the form of standardized tests or attendance information, for example."

He stresses, "Data are most useful when principals and teachers discuss it and make sense of it together. They should look at it as trend data so that they can go back several years and see what it used to be like and what it's like today. Schools that are most successful, I have found, are schools that have had some training in data analysis and working together around that data. Because very often it's quite difficult to understand what it's about and what it means. So some training and lots of discussion among teachers with the principal is necessary to make sense of what it means and what it indicates the school needs to work on next to realize its vision."

Like Sparks, Shirley Hord emphasizes the value of school leaders informally checking progress by consistently visiting classrooms and touching base with teachers. She says, "First of all, this lets teachers know that the administrators or leaders in the building are interested in what they are doing. And, secondly, it lets them know that this program they are trying to implement, the new work they are trying hard to do, is being appreciated and is a high priority for the school leadership."

Planning for evaluation or checking progress should be included as part of the planning process for your CSR program. Checking progress throughout program implementation in a planned systematic way could be considered formative or process evaluation. With formative evaluation we check our progress toward expected outcomes by asking questions such as "What is working?" "What should be improved?" How should it be changed?" Assessments such as surveys, interviews, observations, and checklists can be used to develop formative evaluations.

SEDL Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer Joan Buttram refers to the formative evaluation as an early warning device. She explains the importance of having an evaluation plan in place early on: "You won't reach your end results if things that were supposed to happen along the way didn't happen. Uncovering problems as they arise and addressing the problems promptly can make or break your final results. The evaluation helps ensure that everything is being carried out as it should be."

"All too often administrators feel they intuitively know what's going on in the CSR program, but they can be wrong," Buttram reports. "They often only talk to a certain group of people to get feedback or they only see a few parts of the program being implemented. A good evaluation plan can provide an overall view of how the program is being implemented."

A final part of the monitoring and checking progress is to put the findings into use. This means creating opportunities to discuss findings with staff and decide if changes should be made. It means celebrating successes and learning from mistakes. It also means appropriately sharing findings with stakeholders outside of the school building—the superintendent, the school board, parents, and community. Keeping stakeholders informed and interested can bolster the support for your CSR program.

Monitoring and Checking Progress: How Did Sierra Vista and Sunrise Measure Up?

One reason Sierra Vista's reform program was thriving was that Ms. Martinez regularly led her staff in looking at student data. Sierra Vista teachers seemed to enjoy studying data and determining what progress their students were making. Ms. Martinez also demonstrated how important she thought the teachers' work was by visiting the classrooms and following up with teachers regarding their instruction. She served as a valuable support system for her staff and set the tone for the entire school reform program.

On the other hand, Ms. Smith had not begun to promote the study of student data on a regular basis nor did Sunrise teachers have organized discussions about the informal indicators of school change, such as student attitudes or how certain students were struggling. Due to this lack of reflection, the staff not only missed out on seeing what adjustments to their program should be made, but also missed what may have been valuable indicators of progress in their school reform program—progress that the consultant from the model developer's office saw easily.