identifying and implementation of programs practices

Final Response to Challenge C Please review Challenge C 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 The superintendent has been looking forward to the upcoming school board meeting because the agenda for the meeting includes a discussion about recent student achievement data in mathematics and literacy and her report on the recent principal retreats. During the meeting, the board reviews the student performance data and, based on this review, decides to focus district efforts on initiatives to improve student achievement in literacy and mathematics. The superintendent concurs with the decision, and as part of her report, she explains how the principals' newly shared understanding of the relationships among continuous school improvement, change, and organizational learning could contribute directly to the district's new initiatives. After the board hears her report, they promise to support the schools in their efforts to implement and sustain continuous school improvement. You are hopeful that good things can happen given the strong leadership from the central office; new resources pledged by local foundations and businesses; pent up commitment to improve student performance; and research, discussion, and activities that have occurred around the desirability of change and continuous school improvement. When you think about your own school, you are reminded—f rom your reading and conversations with more experienced colleagues—that how you go about implementing continuous school improvement will affect, among other things, the motivation, ability, and willingness of your teachers and staff to sustain improvement efforts over time. You recognize, for example, that some new programs may not work as well for some students as for others; some teachers may become weary of the extra pressure to achieve high goals not yet reached; key staff may move to other schools or otherwise leave; the proportion of students with special needs may continue to increase; and potential opponents of the new initiatives, who have until now remained silent, may voice objections. The Challenge In order to enhance the prospects for effectively implementing and sustaining continuous school improvement related to the new initiatives in literacy and mathematics, you decide to hold a series of meetings with your teachers and staff to share what you have learned about continuous school improvement, change, and organizational learning. Your goal is to then enlist their help in brainstorming a list of promising structures and practices for implementing and sustaining continuous school improvement—in this case, related to the district's literacy and mathematics initiatives. In addition, you want to have the group consider the values and dispositions that empower people to engage in the challenging work of continuous school improvement. Finally, you want them to identify challenges that might arise as the school implements and strives to sustain continuous school improvement efforts and discuss how such challenges might be addressed. To inform and stimulate your staff's thinking and inspire group participation, you realize that in addition to sharing what you have learned, you will need to provide some examples as well as present some research-based information on these topics. To organize your own knowledge and thinking and to guide your facilitation of the meeting, you decide to develop a set of notes for yourself. In your Final Response to Challenge C, you will create a set of notes in which you: Identify at least four promising structures and practices for implementing and sustaining continuous school improvement and explain how they are interrelated—that is, how they are mutually reinforcing Describe four or more potential challenges to implementing and sustaining continuous school improvement and explain how they might be addressed Describe at least four values, beliefs, and dispositions that empower school leaders, faculty, and staff to engage effectively in the challenging work of continuous school improvement, and explain what school leaders can do to nurture and support these values, beliefs, and dispositions