Jamme+Rough+Draft


 * Introduction and statements of the problems or questions to be answered**

Hickory Ridge High School is a large urban school containing approximately 1,800 students (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2009). 15 percent of these students are special-needs or exceptional, 46 percent are white, 40 percent are African American, 12 percent are Hispanic, and 2 percent are Asian and recent immigrants. Hickory Ridge High School is undergoing a period of reform. The needs of the student population have significantly changed in the past four years (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2009). Staff, faculty members, business partners, and parents have attempted to meet student needs by implementing various reform initiatives. However, they have experienced little success. Four years ago, the school was chosen to fulfill the district vision and become a model for school reform, which would ultimately spread throughout the district. The vision of the school district is to become a technologically driven, innovative school district, but the administrators and teachers have been in conflict about how best to achieve this vision. The school has become viewed as out of date, unable to meet new reform guidelines, and in serious conflict. Much of the conflict within the school arises from the dynamic that has evolved among faculty and administrators. Hickory High principal, Jim O’Connor, does not have the respect of his teachers; they view him as someone who would not advance farther than a high school principal (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2009). O’Connor is very knowledgeable about the community and existing programs within the school district, yet he lacks understanding of student needs in the twenty-first century. In the last four years, Hickory High acquired twenty-seven new teachers, all of whom were in the top 10 percent in their school programs. The intention of placing these new teachers at Hickory High was to allow O’Connor and the aging teaching staff to learn from them about new and innovative programs. The hope was also that the new teachers would learn about the school’s history and past successes from O’Connor and the experienced teachers. This sharing of knowledge and skills never took place. Instead, the young teachers view O’Connor and the older teachers as being out of touch with the twenty-first century and they fear being held back in their careers. O’Connor complains the new hires look down on him and the older teachers and perceives they don’t understand the school culture or the community. This paper will address the various reasons behind the lack of success at Hickory Ridge High School and will propose recommendations for resolving conflict within the school. The topics to be addressed include: lack of respect, vision, and communication among all staff and faculty; lack of administrator power and guidance; unguided ambition among new teachers; teacher complacency; lack of support and professional development; and difficulty in achieving school reform while preserving its history. These problems are not unique to Hickory High and educators should reflect upon the strategies presented in this paper to gain insights on how to improve their own school settings. Hickory Ridge High school is at a point where it has reached inevitable change. The current principal, Jim O'Connor, is in need of guidance and planning which will bridge the gap between what the school was and what it needs to be to succeed in its modern state. The school face multiple problems, all of which will be outlined in this paper with recommendations for change. The current problems Hickory Ridge faces include a lack of respect, vision, and communication among all staff and faculty, lack of administrator power and guidance, suppression of new teacher ambition, excessive comfort with the previous status quo amongst veteran staff, a lack of support and professional development, and a strong need for school reform and preservation. Through analysis and research, we will make observations and recommendations regarding what the superintendent of the Wingfield School District must do in order to set the stage for the type of reform needed at Hickory Ridge High.


 * Literature Review**

The lack of respect, vision and communication among all staff and faculty creates a negative impact on the school’s climate. According to Christensen, Marx, and Stevenson (2006), the following factors influence school climate: school mission and vision statement, staff and faculty work relationships, principal’s behavior and leadership style, lines of communication, and faculty and staff’s feeling of respect and trust for leadership. There is a breakdown in many of these areas at Hickory High. It is important to work toward a positive school climate because school climate significantly impacts school performance and academic achievement (Tubbs & Garner, 2008). One way to assess school climate is through periodic climate surveys (Tubbs and Garner, 2008). A survey can be designed to determine the level of faculty and staff dissatisfaction toward the school’s climate and their work environment. Teacher perceptions concerning school mission and vision, communication, administration, work environment, and personal opinions can be determined through the survey responses. Once the results have been collected and determined, school leaders can create a plan to work towards improvement. The lack of respect, vision and communication among all staff and faculty must be addressed in order to meet the demands for school reform. Providing a positive and supportive working environment where staff, faculty and administrators feel valued and respected will likely improve employee morale and performance at Hickory High.
 * Lack of respect, vision and communication amongst all staff and faculty**


 * Lack of Administrator Power and Guidance & Professional Development**

Hickory Ridge High School is the first in Wingfield School District to experience school reform. As the current superintendent, there are a variety of reform efforts that must be implemented. With the diverse population of faculty and staff, tensions have been created. These tensions have created rifts in the administrative power and guidance among teachers and staff and HRHS. The principal need to evaluate his leadership qualities and promote more group and team efforts to earn respect among his colleagues. People need to not just work together, they need to develop skills on how to work together (Anderson, 2010). As Anderson suggests, just like a football coach works with their team members to maximize each players strengths, leaders need to do the same. Through this skill building, coaches and leaders will develop relationships with the team to achieve a higher level performance (2010). Through skill building, the principal will also earn respect from his staff and faculty. Shisler points out how administrations often are isolated from his or her team due to the demands of the job expectations. However, administrators need to learn work more with their teams to develop the relationships. With earned relationships come respect. Some of the things Shisler suggested six ways to personalize the faculty development programs (1995). Another way to earn back administrative leadership and power at HRHS, Principal O’Conner needs to implement leadership standards. Hoy and Smith suggested ten ways to promote influence. Applying some of these ideas will allow other to follow to promote committment and colleagueship at HRHS. As suggested earlier, establishing a bond with the teachers and staff will establish good will and trust. When trust has been formed, people are more willing to follow. Principal O’Conner also need to evaluate his behaviors and attitude. He needs to remember, what he gives, he will receive. Hoy and Smith also state that leaders need to exhibit expertise, trust, fairness, self-efficacy, and optimism (2007).

Another issue facing Hickory Ridge High is the administration's lack of concern for a diminished sense of voice amongst eager new talent. Often times, new teachers begin their careers at schools full of energy, knowledge, and willingness. They are excited to guide and positively affect young minds, and they also want to be a part of positive change within the school as a whole. In the case of Hickory Ridge High School, new teacher ambition has been all but ignored. The school administrators are lucky to have such enthusiastic staff members, but if they feel undervalued due to their lack of experience, their motivation is sure to wane. Goodson (2006) notes that "when excellent teachers become disillusioned, this is a problem for standards-based reform" (p. 6). He goes on to note that when excellent teachers become disillusioned, lowered standards are inevitable. This direct correlation between teachers' motivation and high standards must be acknowledged at Hickory Ridge for the students' sake as well.
 * New Teacher Ambition**

At Hickory Ridge, many of the veteran teachers, including the Principal O'Connor, have reached a comfort level with the 'way things have always been done.' This faction of the staff subscribes to the 'if it isn't broken, don't fix it" mentality, and resist change and the adoption of the new ideas of the new teachers. Although both views include valid points, Principal O'Connor will need to brand himself as a representative for his entire staff, validating the ideas and contributions of all teachers at his school.
 * Comfort with the Status Quo**

Schools, both low performing and high performing, need to continuously monitor and improve themselves to stay competitive with the rigorous state and federal standards set forth in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. High performing schools need to maintain their level of excellence and not allow past successes to stagnate their present and future goals. These schools “sustain achievement” and “embrace change” (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2009). Low performing schools, on the other hand, need to think outside the box and learn to perform at high levels. To bring Hickory Ridge High School to better meet the needs of the students and faculty, the superintendent needs to work with the principal on instituting sustainable reform efforts, while utilizing his expertise in preserving the history and culture of the school. Before any school reform efforts at Hickory Ridge High School can be started, the superintendent and the principal, Jim O’Connor, must ensure that each step toward change is not superficial. According to Reeves (2007), there are “four steps to ensuring lasting change”. The first step for enacting lasting change is for the principal and superintendent to define what aspects of the school will remain the same through the reform process. This step is where the superintendent can work with Jim O’Connor’s strength’s and expertise as keeper of the history and his excellent rapport with parents and students. There are some positive aspects at Hickory High School, and Mr. O’Connor can help the superintendent “place change within the context of stability”. Second, the leader must recognize that his or her actions are louder than his or her words. In this step, the superintendent and Jim O’Connor must have follow through on any reform effort they propose. As principal, Jim O’Connor must have buy-in, if he does not respect the specific reform effort, then the staff will not respect it either. This is the superintendent’s most challenging part of the four steps, because Jim O’Connor is set in his ways. The superintendent must work to show Jim O’Connor that he has a lot to offer his staff by leading them in school reform. In addition, the tools for reform must fit with the school culture. There are many tools for reform, but it is important for the superintendent and Jim O’Connor to select reform tools that are appropriate for Hickory Ridge High School. In this step, the superintendent can again tap into Jim O’Connor’s skills and knowledge of students and the community to decide which reform efforts could produce the best results. The last of Reeves’s (2007) steps toward lasting change is that the leader must get “get down and dirty along with everyone else”. The leader must fully embrace the reform effort; and there is no better way for Jim O’Connor to show he is for reform efforts than to show the staff that he is ready to help in every aspect of the school reform. One way the superintendent can encourage Jim O'Connor to embrace a school reform effort, is to start in an area that Mr. O'Connor excels. Mr. O'Connor has a strong and supportive parent group who are ready and willing to assist in the efforts of the new school direction. In addition, Mr. O'Connor has a great rapport with the parents in his school and is very familiar with the community. This provides an excellent starting point for reform and would help bridge the gap between the administration and the faculty. Community involvement would benefit the faculty and students, which would be a bridge to a more productive partnership between the administration and staff. For the community involvement to be successful, Jim O'Connor needs to engage the stakeholders to want to assist in improving Hickory High School. To do this, Jim O'Connor will need to make an effort to improve school climate, extinguish barriers to participation and allocate funds to perpetuate family and community involvement. Community involvement is only first step in reforming Hickory High School. A more concerted effort will be needed to improve the school climate and instruction. The superintendant and Jim O'Connor must institute a framework for school improvement which are more conducive to improved collegiality between administration and staff. The renewal framework includes: a covenant, shared governance plan and ability to participate in action research (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2009). The covenant is a belief system that administration, staff and community members share about exemplary teaching and learning within a school setting. Mr. O'Connor must want to collaborate with his staff to define the direction of the school. This covenant is more than a mission and vision, because Hickory High School already revised the mission to no avail. To get buy-in from the staff, Mr. O'Connor must allow individual opinions and voices to discuss what the new direction of the school should be. This collaboration can be in large groups during staff meetings, smaller groups during department meetings or personally through surveys and data analysis of survey results. In order for the covenant to be affective, Mr. O'Connor must utilize the beliefs that the staff has about teaching and learning to serve as a guide that will direct the school through its reform effort. Once the covenant is mutually agreed upon through collaboration and discussion, the staff must decide how they will achieve their goals through shared governance. The shared governance model must be detailed and show the decision making process. Mr. O'Connor should develop teams of teachers and assign them specific responsibilities with decision-making power for those responsibilities. Mr. O'Connor should institute A+ teams, leadership teams, department teams, technology teams and safety teams with specific responsibilities and decision-making power. For example, A+ teams can be responsible for reviewing and selecting upcoming staff development, while technology teams could be in charge of the technology budget needs for instructional hardware and software. Each team would be composed of teachers from varying disciplines and grade levels thereby creating a horizontal and vertical sampling to better address the needs of the school. Action research is the third and final prong of the framework for school improvement (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2009). Action research is the ability of the staff and administration to reflect upon their goals and determine if the school is on track to make its desired progress. Standardized testing and rigorous state standards have increased action research in the teaching profession. Action research can be as simple as teachers collecting class data and developing a plan to improve results over time, to working with college professors of a specific discipline to hone and improve classroom skills (Megowan-Romanowicz, 2010). In the case of Hickory High School, due to the large variance in teaching experience, it would be appropriate to ease action research into the classroom setting. Jim O'Connor and the staff can start out with simple action research implementation such as graphing classroom and school achievement goals, then analyzing the data to formulate a plan. Hickory High School can also utilize plus/delta charts with student input, to improve or change instruction to suit the students’ specific needs. The more intensive action research can be introduced slowly through staff meetings, professional development and even best practices within the school.
 * School Reform**


 * Conclusions and Recommendations**

1) Lack of respect, vision, and communication among all staff and faculty - Amanda To address the issue of the lack of respect, vision, and communication among staff and faculty, Principal O’Connor should form and participate in a committee that will assess the current school climate. This committee will include various stakeholders, and they will practice shared decision making. In the first year, the goal of the committee will be to design and implement a climate survey. The climate survey will determine the level of faculty and staff dissatisfaction toward the school’s climate and their work environment. The survey should include questions to measure teacher perception concerning school mission and vision, communication, administration, work environment, and their personal opinions.

Once the survey has been designed, the committee will distribute the climate survey to all staff and faculty, requesting their honest feedback. The committee will then collect the completed surveys and analyze the results. The staff and faculty feedback can then be used to create a plan to improve school climate. Over the following two-five years, the committee will implement their improvement plan and utilize the same climate survey each year, comparing the results. The goal will be to improve school climate over the next two-five years so faculty and staff will feel valued and respected. This will lead to improved respect, vision, and communication among staff and faculty.

2) Lack of administrator power and guidance -Ashley 3) New teacher ambition - Rebecca 4) Comfort with status quo - Rebecca 5) Support and Professional Development - Amanda 6) School reform and preservation - Elijah