Continuous school improvement

Final Response to Challenge A Please review Challenge A before creating your Final Response. Your Final Response may build on ideas you generated in your Initial Response and/or in the Discussion. It also may be developed from ideas suggested by your colleagues. The Case A new superintendent has been appointed in your district. She is known for being strongly committed to improving student learning and for being impatient with those who are not willing to change in order to make that happen. She enjoys considerable backing from local political and business leaders who have pledged resources to support her commitment to continuous school improvement. From past experience, the superintendent knows that any school improvement effort in which the district might engage undoubtedly will require changes in structures and practices, knowledge and skills, and values and dispositions related togoal setting, assessment and analysis of student performance, instruction, curriculum, professional development, and other key aspects of effective schools. Therefore, she has requested that the district's principals join her in studying continuous school improvement as a way to foster higher levels of learning for all students. To that end, she schedules two full-day retreats with the principals. The purpose of the first retreat is to discuss what it takes to foster continuous school improvement, develop a common understanding of the change process (as schools engaged in continuous school improvement inevitably require change), and support the changes that will be involved. You are asked to be the facilitator of one of several small groups. The superintendent plans to sit in on as many group discussions as possible. The Challenge Before the retreat, you meet with the other facilitators to discuss how to set up the small groups in a way that generates participation and meets the superintendent's goals. You agree that this is more likely to happen if each of you prepares by learning what experts think about change processes that result in continuous school improvement and how school leaders can support such change. You suggest that each of you develop a set of notes on these topics to share with one another in preparation for facilitating the small-group discussions. In your Final Response to Challenge A, you will prepare notes that address, but are not limited to, the following: How a theoretical understanding of the change process can enable a school leader to support change required by continuous school improvement Four or five challenges that a school leader may need to address as a staff and school undergo changes related to continuous school improvement What a school leader can do to: Address the cognitive and emotional effects of change experienced by those involved in continuous school improvement Use the uncertainty associated with change to foster rather than impede continuous school improvement