School Change And The Development Of Effective Learning Communities

According to Michael Fullan (2016) in his book, The New Meaning of Educational Change, successful organizations that demonstrate change followed principled concepts of change. The reason for their success if that there is tangible proof of alignment in keeping components of actions. Fullan (2016) stated that successful change incorporates five factors. In this essay, three of the five factors will be discussed and an example of an organization using components of the change be revealed. Often when organization shave to go through the process of change it means either they have gone through change to repair broken areas or they are going through change as a reflective exercise before embarking on a larger scope of practice perhaps to expand into new growth within their organization. In either course, the larger concern is that organizations must embrace change and engage in meaningful constructed ways to promote the best growth with the fewest steps to reach accomplishment. A key decision factor to change is whether an organize will change because they adopt a model and see a better way or whether they want to save their resources. Fullan (2016) suggested that the reason for the change is largely to work is because, the organizations, “Define closing the gap as the overarching goal,” “Assume that lack of capacity is the initial problem and then work on it continuously,” and “Stay the course through continuity of good direction by leveraging leadership,” (Fullan, 2016,

The professional learning community will develop the steps of transforming our schools. It will use these eight steps as professional development protocols in reducing the dropout rate and increasing college and career readiness.

Professional Development measures the degree to which teachers value continuous personal development and school-wide improvement.

Identifies skills, theories of change, program designs, partnerships, and ways of building schools where students achieve.

First, by developing professional learning communities, HSHS primary goal is to establish an organizational culture of shared commitment to academic excellence and exemplary behavior for all students. As evident, in Document 1. Excerpt from Teacher Survey (see attached) revealed that 30% of the ELA Teachers and 37% of the Math and Science Teachers “My academy receives necessary professional development.” In addition, Document 1. Excerpt from Teacher Survey revealed that 38% of the ELA Teachers and 42% of the Math and Science Teachers said, “I feel safe at the school.” Moreover, Document 2. Excerpt from Parent Survey revealed that 68% of the Latino (ethnic) agreeing or strongly agreeing and 87% of the Black (ethnic) agreeing or strongly

“The transformation model requires replacement of the school principal, strengthening of staffing, implementation of a research-based instructional program and new

The purpose of this report is to propose change within an organization and evaluate 1) Knowledge, 2) Skills, and 3) Dispositions as they apply to the change process. This report is structured in a fashion to allow a school to reflect on how it provides teaching and learning

When a school receives a negative or unsatisfactory rating it will be important that as an administrator we do not hide but rather face the problem head on. If we try to dodge those who are concerned it will only lead to more anger and fractured relationships. It is important that we focus on maintaining and improving upon our relationships. We need to capture the communities and parents trust through our actions toward improvement which can be supported by data. Per, Maze of Mistrust Parents, Educators, and the Challenge of Public Engagement business groups, local government officials, taxpayers, and civic organizations were sometimes clamoring for change and often mystified by what the schools were up to. Now is the time that we must

For this experience, I chose to visit an elementary school and its feeder middle school. I chose this because students leave this elementary school with a high rate of student achievement, yet in middle school the scores plummet. I wanted to investigate how this gap could be minimized. Comparing philosophies, expectations and leadership styles for schools within the same community was also a goal.

Initially and still relatively concrete in thought, I sincerely felt that the leadership within the school hierarchy started with the principal and branched down all the way to the core teachers, specialists, and support staff, establishing that whatever the aims and jurisdictions set forth by the principal overtly shaped the nature of a school’s approach to reform and learning expectations. Additionally, teachers were expected to operate in their specific roles to advance those expectations set forth in large school staff meetings that planned

Under the concept of capital, schools’ role can be best understood as intermediaries where exchange across different forms of capital and creation of new capital take place. In other words, through school, cultural capital and social capital could be exchangeable, and specific capital could be created or adopted. Jamal’s intellectual and athletic talents and aspiration (embodied cultural capital) lead to a higher social status (new social capital for Jamal) through Mailor-Callow (a school). He is able to receive wide recognition due to the platform that Mailor-Callow has provided – essay competition and high school basketball championship series.

In light of accountability requirements, fear of not meeting AYP (Annual Yearly Progress), and required school improvement plans, often the idea of “school improvement” is considered a negative attribute. Obviously schools do not want to be singled out or identified as in need of improvement. Teachers often take the same view towards the idea of improvement. We as teachers take very personal that concept of improvement; we often parallel the need for improvement to failure. However my belief is that effective schools are always in a school improvement process and effective teachers too also are constantly adapting their practice in a culture of continuous improvement and growth. Therefore it is important as an effective leader to build a community of trust and collaboration. I quote “We are all in this together. Once we know that we are, we’re all stars and we see that we’re all in this together.” (Disney High School Musical, 2006) These lyrics from a popular Disney movie put to light exactly the school culture where the goal is not personal but as a community to use data driven and research based approaches in reflection and growth that assist all stakeholders.

Traditionally, teacher development typically occurs through trial and error in the isolated confinements of each teacher’s classroom with some periodic whole-group professional development (Goddard & Goddard, 2007). Within the past few decades, many schools and districts, including ours, have considered and experimented with Professional Learning Communities (PLC) as an alternative framework in guiding a more efficient development program for their teachers. PLCs are focused on enhancing student learning through developing teacher practices. The concept of PLC relies on using structured collaborative sessions amongst teachers within the school to build internal capacity. Through PLCs, teachers critically reflect on current

School improvement is transformation. It is one of the most important actions of a school. It is a process that schools must use with fidelity to ensure that at all students are given the opportunity to perform and achieve at exemplary levels. School improvement is vital to schools and it is a process that cannot be done in isolation. It requires team work, collaboration, and constant analysis of data and setting of goals. School improvement goals focus on how to meet the needs of students. Addressing the educational needs, funding, and achievement gaps between subgroups is collaborative effort involves everyone that has a vested interest in the schools. These basic measures set the foundation for improvement. And so, if it is the

Systemic change is a recurrent process in which the influence of change on all parts and their relationships to one another are taken into contemplation. Systematic change allows for change on the policy, technology, education, and information levels, it goes beyond thinking about individuals and single problems. Change is an important part of progress and systematic change is a huge undertaking for a school, even any business. People are resistant to change, they like being comfortable, but sometimes being comfortable is not being effective. This week while discussing change, an article stood out; the author wrote “…comprehensive school reform will succeed only if it’s predicated on a sustained, cooperative, and trusting relationship among parents, school and district staff, and the school board governing the system” (Usdan, 2010, pp.9). In many ways this is true, systematic change is such a large amount of change, people that are not supportive of the change can ultimately cause it to fail. In some cases, one person’s lack of interest in the change can cause a successful school to