A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Section I
What Are Schoolwide Programs?(Continued)

Benefits of Schoolwide Programs

Schoolwide programs allow Title I schools with high concentrations of low-income students to redesign their total education program rather than merely adding on services for students identified as especially at risk. In this way, schoolwides can reduce divisions among education programs, teaching staffs, and groups of students within a single school. Four major advantages schoolwide programs offer are (U.S. Department of Education, September 1997):

• Flexibility: Schools serving high-poverty communities are encouraged to redesign their education program comprehensively. Decisions are made at the school, in consultation with the district, and by representative groups of administrators, staff, parents, and community members. School site teams can flexibly address the needs of their students by combining resources. The whole school bears the responsibility for every child's success, instead of limiting that responsibility to either a program or an individual.

• Coordination and Integration: Planning brings teachers and support staff together and enhances working conditions for many educators. Schoolwide programs reduce curricular and instructional fragmentation, giving teachers new opportunities to enrich instruction and accelerate learning for all students.

• Accountability: Accountability is clear and coordinated. All students are responsible for achieving the same high standards. There are no separate assessments of designated groups of students. Students who experience difficulty mastering any of the required standards are provided timely, effective additional instructional assistance. The school keeps parents informed of the achievement of individual students.

• Unified Goals: Schoolwide programs bring parents and the community together behind the total effort, as participants, planners, and decision makers.

Two decades of research have shown that carefully planned comprehensive educational programs, adequately assisted by school and district administrators, can offer disadvantaged children an enriched curriculum, significant improvement in their problem-solving and thinking skills, and high-caliber teaching. ⁽³⁾ Schoolwide programs refrain from "thinking about kids in a fragmented, categorical way," observes Brian McNulty, Colorado's assistant commissioner for the Office of Special Services. "Our premise is that everyone is responsible for the success of all kids. That's the cornerstone of what we're all about." Thus, schoolwide programs reject any arbitrary separation of one individual or a group for "special" work; students are free of labels. These programs rarely pull underachieving children out of classrooms for special services or label them as low achievers; instead, students remain in classrooms where their regular teachers, working together with specialists, strive to reverse continuing failure and to help them achieve the same high academic standards as their peers. Within the framework of the school day, teachers can focus and coordinate instructional activities across content areas and student activities (Pechman & Fiester, 1996). Moreover, a school that becomes a schoolwide program can adopt instructional approaches, strategies, and programs that have promising track records for comprehensive curricular, instructional, and school organizational improvements (Fashola & Slavin, 1998).

The schoolwide option has other significant benefits. First, because almost all federal education funds used in schoolwide programs may be used to improve the entire school, these funds can leverage other resources and opportunities. Second, the schoolwide process requires each school to design its own improvement approach, based on an in-depth assessment of local needs and strengths. This process ensures that schools seek out the most appropriate models for change and reshape their curriculum, instruction, and organization to best serve their unique students and community stakeholders. It also can build communication and collaboration within the school community.

Guiding Principles and Practices of Good Schoolwide Programs

A schoolwide program's most important obligation is to give every student a high-quality curriculum and learning experience, structured according to a plan that enables students to meet their state's challenging academic standards. Research shows that successful school reformers, including those involved in schoolwide programs, use certain guiding principles and practices to turn these goals into reality:⁽⁴⁾

1. Strong leadership enhances the prospect of successful reform.
   The Narragansett School in Gorham, Maine, created the position of Teacher Scholar to give teachers more opportunities for formal leadership within the building. Every year, one teacher takes a sabbatical from the classroom to provide full-time staff development assistance to other teachers and paraprofessionals. Meanwhile, other teachers serve as team leaders and staff development chairpersons.

2. Reform goals should be based on a shared vision that includes the active support of a range of stakeholders.
   Silvio O. Conte Community School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, appointed faculty, parent, and community members to committees to study and formulate action plans for each major reform initiative. Committees identified attainable goals for each initiative and kept staff informed of their plans through biweekly staff meetings and by sharing committee minutes.

3. School reform takes time and involves risk.
   Changing tradition is never easy, as planners at Newman Crossing Elementary School in Newman, Georgia, learned. The school adopted a year-round schedule as part of its shift to a schoolwide program. The planning team faced initial opposition from some people who resisted the change and demanded early results. After much discussion, the planners urged critics to give the program a grace period before trying to evaluate it. Two years later, Newman Crossing demonstrated that the year-round calendar was working smoothly and student achievement had substantially improved.

4. Reform participants must have training before they implement reform.
   In Henderson, Kentucky, the district office collaborates with schools, the Kentucky Department of Education, and with its regional service center to provide an array of long-term staff development programs in response to schools' consolidated plans. Professional development is central to this innovative district's commitment to meet its community's "shared promises," ensuring that teachers are responsive to children. Henderson County teachers participate in three days of staff development planned by the school, and they may use four additional days to attend staff development activities with their colleagues or to follow a personal improvement plan. The numerous professional activities available include research study groups, attendance at conferences and national meetings, on-site programs to learn about research-based reforms, visits to other classrooms and schools, and other enhancements to teaching in the core content.

5. Reform strategies should be flexible enough to accommodate several solutions to a given problem.
   When circumstances forced Atenville Elementary School in Harts, West Virginia, to change plans and shorten time lines, the school's action research team volunteered to speed up its development and implementation of a performance-based report card and assessment procedure. The team learned—while implementing the new program—that new teaching strategies would require modernized assessment and reporting approaches to closely monitor and adjust the emerging instructional program. Because of the team's willingness to work more quickly, however, the transition into the planned reforms proceeded smoothly.

6. Reform may require redesigning organizational infrastructure.
   George Cox Elementary School in Gretna, Louisiana, abandoned its grade-level organizational structure and divided into four small schools, each responsible for its own educational decisions. A steering committee coordinates the sub-schools to ensure that the school still works as a whole, but the smaller organizing units better serve individual students in smaller groups.

7. Reform is not cost free. Prospects for reform improve whenever resources are available to support the new, emerging system.
   Funding staff for Samuel W. Mason Elementary School's schoolwide program in Boston, Massachusetts, means combining resources from the local school system, ESEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and other state, district, and private grants under a single budget. The aggregate resources support the school's focus on literacy development, smaller class sizes, and additional teaching assistance in every classroom.

8. Reform is an ongoing process requiring continuous self-assessment.
   Self-assessment means ongoing measurement of both student achievement and school progress toward goals. Otken Elementary School in McComb, Mississippi, annually revisits its schoolwide plan using data collected by parents, teachers, support staff, district personnel, and community volunteers. "Our vision remains steady," the school principal reports, "while our reform strategies change with students' changing needs."

9. Schoolwide reform should grow out of a meaningful planning process that lays a firm foundation for long-term improvement.
   Although the impetus for developing a schoolwide program usually begins at a school, successful schoolwides invest in valuable planning time, with encouragement and assistance from district and state officials responsible for federal programs. Effective local and state education agencies (LEAs and SEAs) provide information and advice about the schoolwide option to all schools. Schools that decide to apply for the option commit to the planning process and seek advice from their state and local agencies as they begin to conduct needs assessments, form school-based planning committees and support teams, and specify the research-based changes that will constitute their plan for schoolwide improvement.

10. Schoolwide improvement should accommodate and support a diverse student population.
    To reach all students, schoolwide programs should respond to variations in native languages, learning styles, racial/ethnic and cultural heritages, economic status, and academic and social needs. These differences cause students to understand, communicate, and learn in diverse ways. Programs that accept these differences ensure that every student is a vital member of the school's learning community. Planners can create culturally responsive environments by systematically and directly addressing race, ethnicity, and cultural issues in what is taught and how learning is structured schoolwide.

think about this. . .

What Makes a Schoolwide Program
Culturally Responsive?

Making teaching and learning culturally sensitive means going beyond merely improving practices for educating students from "non-dominant backgrounds" (WestEd, 1996, p. IV-16):

[It is] about valuing plurality; treating all persons equally and with respect; leveling power relationships premised on stereotypes, fear, and prejudice; and affirming the cultural, ethnic, racial and linguistic identity for each individual.... "Otherness" is not situated in certain students; where one sees difference is relative to where one stands.

A culturally responsive framework for teaching developed by Wlodkowski and Ginsberg (1995) calls for the creation of classrooms that: (1) establish inclusion, by devising a learning atmosphere in which learners feel respected and connected to each other; (2) develop positive attitudes, by providing experiences that are personally relevant to participants and offer meaningful choices; (3) enhance meaning, by offering challenging and engaging learning opportunities; and (4) engender competence, by helping students to cultivate their skills and abilities.

For example, Spring Woods High School in Houston, Texas, has a growing Latino population and wanted to figure out how improving instruction for these newest students could benefit all students. The school created a "schoolwide development cadre" that studied and applied the framework for culturally responsive teaching to the school's circumstances. The schoolwide development team planned institutes so the entire staff could examine issues related to culturally responsive classrooms and coordinate their instructional strategies to make the curriculum fully inclusive. In addition, parent volunteers created a parentled research team to visit innovative schools and explore ways to encourage parent involvement at Spring Woods High.

The State and District Role in Schoolwide Programs

Ultimately, principals, teachers, parents, and other school stakeholders are responsible for developing the programs in their school—but school districts and SEAs play vital roles in helping schools make fundamental changes. As Elliott Medrich, project director at MPR Associates, reminded participants at the 1997 Improving America's Schools conference, "Reform is neither bottom up nor top down; it is both." Schools, after all, work within a state and local policy environment that can help education programs grow and flourish.

State and district coordinators of federal programs typically regard schoolwide programs as the glue that bonds many initiatives in high-poverty schools. For example, states have begun to send ESEA and school improvement consultants on joint visits to schools and LEAs to try to connect state reform efforts with ESEA. "We encourage schools to avoid duplicating their reform(s) by using the same information to develop both local reforms and ESEA programs together," explains Paul Cahill, an administrative consultant at the Iowa Department of Education. Oregon encourages schools to use the schoolwide option to unite state, local, and school reform components under a single plan. According to education programs specialist Carol Talley, "Schools should have one comprehensive plan that is the blueprint for how they're going to guide all their students to achieve the same high standards.... We have said, 'Your schoolwide plan and school improvement plan should be one and the same. The school improvement plan may not have all the components for comprehensive schoolwide planning, but if...you have completely restructured your activities for students based on what you know about [your] community, then you have the essence of a school improvement plan and more.'"

District administrators are critical advocates of schoolwide programs, as well. In Somerville, Massachusetts, Title I director Zita Samuels hosted a day-long open house for one potential schoolwide program. This gathering helped stakeholders meet informally, examine options, and get answers to their questions. Samuels reports:

I sent an invitation to every teacher, administrator, and parent to visit me in the library.... I was there all day to answer questions and discuss options and the school's needs. I posted charts on what a schoolwide is, the requirements, possible uses of funds, a school wish list, and [I identified some of] the school's strengths and weaknesses.... The questions people had—parents as well as teachers—had to do with the difficulty of the change process. What will be different for my child? How will I be expected to teach differently? What staff changes might there be?... The answer [I gave was] that we don't know until we try, but the point is to help all kids in the school achieve more educationally.... At this first meeting, I showed a film about three schools that turned around through the schoolwide change process. Then we looked at the charts and brainstormed the school goals, the things they would like to change. This was the beginning of the development of the school's core beliefs statement. It started the process rolling.

In addition, many states have disseminated comprehensive planning guides with examples of needs assessments and strategies for conducting systematic, data-based inquiries into a school's academic status and needs. The new Kentucky Consolidated Planning Process (KDE, August 1997), developed by Kentucky educators, parents, and business partners, leads school and district communities through planning activities that consolidate the multiple state, federal, and local goals and funding streams supporting Kentucky schools. This guide provides a mechanism for coordinating both school and districtwide planning around mutually reinforcing state and local goals and implementation strategies. The SEA forwarded to each district and school a copy of the planning guide for local use. In addition, the Regional Service Centers conducted training sessions following the "rhythm of the school year" to introduce to local educators the type of planning that would logically occur at six different segments in the year. School-based consolidated planning in Kentucky brings together study teams of teachers, community partners, and parents in answering focused analytic questions about each school's curriculum, achievement status, community needs, climate, resources, technology, and other critical issues affecting schoolwide change.

In addition to developing planning guides, most states also bring together faculty and school leaders at annual or semi-annual statewide or regional meetings. Through school and district staff development programs, they introduce school teams to distinguished educators with experience planning successful schoolwide programs. Also, states and districts are compiling lists of experts from regional Comprehensive Centers and universities who are available to serve on school support teams. For more information on high-quality technical assistance and support for developing schoolwide programs, see Section IV.

[Section I - What Are Schoolwide Programs?]

[Section II - An Overview of the Planning Process]