The Power of School Autonomy and Family Involvement In Postive Learning Outcomes

The Power of School Autonomy and Family Involvement

In Positive Learning Outcomes

This paper was first presented at the Oxford Round Table, Oxford England July 21, 2005

by Gloria Mitchell and Lynn Winnemore

Introduction

In order to address the issue of school autonomy and family involvement, we at T. T. Minor Elementary School began with the telling of our truths. We began the truth telling with the acknowledgement of our strengths, the gifts we possess, our individual levels of commitment to the organization, and our academic astuteness regarding educating children of color. This truth telling moved us to the development of common and meaningful working beliefs, competence in understanding the cultures of others, and awareness of our individual biases about those with whom we work. All of the changes that were initiated during the restructuring of the environment stemmed from our initial telling of truths.

This paper is presented in an effort not only to make known how to achieve excellent outcomes through a powerful change process, but also to demonstrate what can happen when an organization commits itself to systemic change. This process allows a different model of teacher performance and interaction; one in which the administrator is the educational leader and the staff commits to developing a workplace that puts the needs of the learners first; a place where authentic interactions with learners serve as the foundation of daily practice.

There were many critical issues facing T. T. Minor Elementary School. To maximize the benefits of our efforts, we prioritized a few of the most urgent issues that impeded teaching and learning. Our focus became supporting the committed, dedicated staff in acknowledging their deficits as they remained open to gaining needed skills that would produce positive results in the areas of genuine family involvement, instructional excellence, and student competence.

The urgent need for school-wide social skills; a clean, safe, welcoming, and nurturing learning environment; positive interactions among staff and students; and teacher competence took center stage. The leadership recognized that school-wide expectations and individual interventions had to be developed and implemented. We believe that the systems changes listed above were essential in developing a powerful learning institution that performs autonomously while working within the overall goals of the larger school district organization.

Background

It is no secret, according to Stevenson and Stigler (1994) that the educational system in the United States is in crisis. This fact was especially true for the educators and the learners at T. T. Minor Elementary School. Despite the infusion of additional funding through the school's unique arrangement with philanthropist Stuart Sloan, success in reading and mathematics continued to elude the learners. The steady decline in academic performance was a heavy burden on the adults working in this learning environment.

In 2001, the school received its third principal in four years. The priority had to be on developing a community—a community where each of us would discover and own our individual truths and match those truths to the needs of the environment. The exposure of individual truths opened the door to self-discovery of the role each of us had played in perpetuating the downward spiral, along with recognition of the new roles we needed to play in creating systemic change in the environment. One simple truth was embodied in the answers to the question, "Do we truly, deeply, and without question, believe that the poor, black, behaviorally challenged, strong willed learners on T. T. Minor's campus see the University of Washington, Bethune-Cookman College, Stanford University, or another college as a natural aspect of their educational future?"

It was the power of this question that allowed individuals to open themselves to the discovery and development of new, vigorous, and powerful myths and legends founded in high expectations and positive interactions with students. With ultimate respect for each person's perceptions, thoughts and ideas, an inclusive activity was instituted so that each person would understand the views of others as we began to dispel destructive myths regarding this learning environment. All staff members committed themselves to engaging in a self-study process that allowed each of us to broaden our truths, open our eyes to a new way of thinking and behaving, and prepare ourselves to accept realizations regarding our roles in students' poor performance.

It was acknowledged that many professionals in the environment had resigned themselves to keeping learners' behavior in line, a task that had become all consuming. As a staff, we committed ourselves to model continual development and maturation. We supported one another. We grew. We changed our perceptions of the learners and our perceptions of our responsibilities as a result of acknowledging our newly discovered truths.

This early work revealed that the role of families had been separated from the day-to-day life of the school, except to receive reports of children's negative behavior. Families, up to this point, believed that was the only role available to them in the environment. The full acknowledgement and acceptance of this truth allowed a new spirit of collaboration between families and the school to emerge, one that embraced the concept of families as partners in the learning process. We use the word family rather than parent throughout our learning environment, since our learners represent many different family constellations that parent our children.

Setting the Tone

With the demand and expectation that all learners be successful, educators are faced with challenges that are far more critical than ever before. Some of these challenges include transmitting culture and heritage to the next generation, instituting learning systems for the future, producing academic excellence in all areas, and assuring that learners gain skills in collaborative decision-making and problem solving. Further, we are charged with the daunting task of preparing students for a future that is yet to be realized. We are to do it all, for every learner, despite limited resources and regardless of the skill level of the students when they arrive at the learning institution.

It was important for the team to:

Establish and agree on norms by which we would work together to identify work values

Develop a decision-making matrix that clarified which decisions would be a part of a group decision-making process

Implement strategies to leave behind a past of low achievement, lack of empowerment, and low expectations.

As a school serving learners predominately of African descent, it is fitting that we use the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to frame the steps we took to immerse ourselves in the environment and evolve to a level of independence: "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." This phrase became the foundation of our work. We took the first step.

As a staff, we came to understand a fundamental truth: our learners are the best they can be in the school situation they experience. It is the adults who must change. We agreed to engage in assessment of our school culture, our instructional practices, and our personal and professional knowledge of the community of learners we serve. Making an agreement to accept the truth of others, no matter how painful the words might be to hear, was a challenge. However, we listened.

Engaging in this level of conversation meant stripping ourselves of our old ways of thinking and behaving and, at the same time, being willing to expose our vulnerabilities, to explore our beliefs in a deeply personal way, and to be openly honest in acknowledging the inhibitors that had prevented teachers from teaching and learners from learning. Ultimately, our challenge was to assure that both staff and students achieved academic excellence.

Racial and Cultural Competence

One simple truth is that we had educators on our campus who believed the dismal academic progress of our students was a realistic picture of their capacity to learn. Some adults felt comfortable in stating these perceptions and felt that assessment results justified and validated their beliefs. Other adults who had a more hopeful outlook for our learners either kept silent or allowed their voices to be drowned over the years. This silence enabled biases and low expectations based on stereotypes to become the norm for ways adults viewed our children.

This phenomenon is not rare among teachers, as is addressed by Parker Palmer (1998) in The Courage to Teach:

When I ask teachers to name the biggest obstacle to good teaching, the answer I most often hear is "my students." When I ask why this is so, I hear a litany of complaints: my students are silent, sullen, withdrawn; they have little capacity for conversation; they have short attention spans; they do not engage well with ideas; . . . Many students have no direction and lack motivation. These students have little knowledge of the social skills necessary for teamwork and negotiation. They're bored and passive in situations calling for action, and belligerent and destructive in contexts requiring reflection (p.40).

It was important that our work be grounded in research, yet the research needed to be easy to understand and to question. The writing of Gary Howard, We Can't Teach What We Don't Know, and of Lisa Delpit, Other People's Children, supported our need. The work of Howard, and Delpit gave us the structure for exploration of the ways in which our thinking could be viewed as racism. Further, we gained a better understanding of how what we say and the way we say it matters in the lives of children. As safety for all voices emerged on campus, people of color began telling their personal stories of early experiences with racism in educational settings. Some European American staff members also began to speak up and share stories that paralleled those of their colleagues of color. The staff members who had previously acted as spokespersons for negative expectations began to see that not everyone believed as they did.

The Seattle School District, as a system, made a commitment during our second year to engage in system-wide work on the topic called Courageous Conversations About Race. This system-wide effort afforded us the additional opportunity to support staff for whom this work was a challenge. When individuals persisted in maintaining and acting on beliefs rooted in racism and stereotypes, they were challenged by their colleagues or worked with the principal to develop additional opportunities to learn. When that process proved unsuccessful, other work options outside the school environment were made available to them.

Our conversations about race continued as we incorporated the school district's efforts into our own work. Our deep work on this subject sparked the momentum for the radical changes needed in this environment. As Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves say in What's Worth Fighting for in Your School (1996), "What is needed is for teachers and their principals to show the courage and commitment to ignite those vital sparks and to make the personal changes that will set in motion and contribute to institutional change (p. 106)." Our work on race continues today, adding richness to conversations about teaching and learning.

Collaboration

Collaboration was a key component in supporting participants in taking a fresh, critical look at themselves and at the issue of power and authority. Greenleaf (1991) believed that collaboration occurs when people begin to learn, however haltingly, to relate to one another in a less coercive and more creative, supportive manner. Similarly, according to Grossen and Anderson (1995), collaboration occurs when everyone is controlling whom they can, namely themselves, and contributing their best efforts to solutions while leaving others free to do likewise. Collaboration requires what Greenleaf called servant-leaders. Servant leadership begins with the natural feeling that one wants to lead. Leaders had begun to emerge naturally within the group as a result of self-discovery. Teachers and other staff now understood that the transformation of our environment was dependent on transforming ourselves (Banks, 1999). We were beginning to recognize our biases, to acknowledge our readiness to work as a team, and to collaborate in our approach to problem solving. The group had coalesced into a structure where the leader expected all in the environment to take on leadership roles. Teams were established to address all components of the school, with the expectation that all of the problems came with solutions. The opinions of all stakeholders were important and held equal weight; therefore certified and classified staff, as well as parents, were represented on the teams. A listener in one model might be the facilitator in another. School-wide leadership became the norm. This servant-leadership development surfaced another simple truth: we were not educating our students well.

Instructional Practices

As we became more knowledgeable of ourselves and our practices, the real issue of instructional excellence became our target. With the high level of trust that had been developed, staff were able to say out loud that they did not possess the skills needed to move the teaching and learning to a higher level. Despite the use of school district approved curriculum materials, our staff lacked a deep understanding of how to implement fully reading, writing, mathematics, and technology strategies.

A Comprehensive School Transformation Plan was developed. This plan included a strand focused on professional staff development, specifically creating high standards and expectations, aligning curriculum and instruction with state standards, monitoring teaching and student progress throughout the school year, and providing focused, high quality training in instructional practices.

Grants were obtained to fund professional development. A required component was the signing of a Statement of Assurance that staff would work in earnest to gain the required skills and knowledge necessary to implement the selected literacy and mathematics programs. It was important that appropriate funding was made available to purchase instructional materials, to implement comprehensive on site training, and to develop a peer observation and feedback model to deepen individual instructional practices.

Staff development opportunities were bountiful at this school during 2001 and 2002. During a 2003 audit by the State of Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, more than half of the staff indicated that they needed more information about statewide standardized tests and reading instruction. It was evident that as new staff came to the site, fewer learning opportunities had been available to them. Still others who had participated in trainings felt unclear regarding the standards. Teaching, re-teaching, clarifying, and modeling became necessary. Expectations were clarified and the desired changes that needed to occur in the classroom were clearly articulated and understood. Teachers were, and continue to be, held accountable for full implementation of the agreed upon programs designed to positively impact learning outcomes.

School Climate

At the same time the staff was working to increase instructional competence, we recognized other truths. For one, the school climate was not respectful of learners and their families. We literally rolled up our sleeves and cleaned, purchased updated furniture, threw away or recycled decades of accumulated clutter, painted walls, brought in plants and artwork, and gradually repaired or replaced worn out and dreary flooring in high impact areas. The school became clean, students began to feel safe, order replaced chaos, and students, families and community members felt welcome.

We needed a multi-level approach to address the remaining aspects of school climate. The first approach was designed to address the mood of our students. Our children did not feel valued or safe. When spoken to they did not speak. Their faces reflected sadness. They lacked a sense of belonging. Some isolated themselves from one another. Others were impatient, hot-tempered, and spoke curtly and harshly to each other. Some engaged in frequent conflict. Adults' interactions with the children were minimal, and when interactions were observed, there was more top-down disciplinary focus than interactive problem-solving or pleasant conversation.

Seeing that the poor interactions of the learners was our collective responsibility, with firm guidance from the principal, we quickly established a policy with procedures that held every adult responsible for every child. As adults engaged in a learning process to change their interactions, it was imperative that we modeled and taught the same process for students. The Committee for Children's Second Step Violence Prevention Curriculum was most fitting for our environment. The program's components include:

Empathy

Impulse control

Anger management

Problem solving skills

Teaching the skills was just one stage. Children must be given many opportunities to practice the new learning. In this model, conflicts are seen as opportunities to practice problem-solving strategies, not as a means of disciplining children with punishments. The process of problem solving is not left only to the adults. Frequently students, observing other students not modeling excellence, will engage them in conversation to help them resolve the conflict.

A Compact was developed defining clear expectations for behavior, attendance, schoolwork, and homework. It has expectations for the learner, the family, the teacher, and the principal. Prior to signing the Compact, each group must carefully understand and assure that they will be able to live up to the responsibilities outlined. It is signed by the student, a family member, and the classroom teacher. When all of the students in a classroom have returned a signed Compact, the principal visits the classroom, goes over the expectations with the class, and makes a ceremony of signing each student's Compact.

To help our learners develop their leadership potential, we established a variety of opportunities: the T. T. Minor Marching Band, Double Dutch Jump Rope Team, Chess Team, and Choir, Assembly Crew, Reading Buddies, and classroom helpers. Staff and students nominate learners for "I Spy A Learner Modeling Excellence" recognition awards, which are presented at the weekly Morning Celebration. Most recently, a postcard mailed to families of children "caught" doing something great in the environment was instituted. All of these initiatives are intended to demonstrate to our learners that they are highly capable, respected, and valued by all.

Much as families gather in the kitchen to talk about the day, we gather weekly to celebrate events important in the lives of our students, guest teachers, and staff. This might include student presentations, sharing information about upcoming events, applauding the Chess Team's successes, parading new hairstyles, etc. Families and community volunteers are encouraged to attend these celebrations.

The past negative perceptions that others held of the T. T. Minor staff and students have disappeared as we, as a community, have changed. We are responsible for the perceptions that others have of us. Staff members make it a point to speak in a welcoming way to any person in the building--students, families, guest teachers, and community members. The atmosphere at T. T. Minor is now warm, friendly and supportive.

A Holistic Approach

The holistic approach at this school uses a Child Study Team model in which the academic, social, emotional, behavioral, physical, and developmental strengths and needs of the learners are the core of our work. The Child Study Team is charged with assuring that all aspects of the learners' needs are addressed. The model includes the principal, school social worker, head teacher, school nurse, psychologist, counselor, special education teacher, social work interns, and family support worker, who meet weekly to examine issues interfering with the success of our most fragile learners.

In the fall of each year, the Team meets with classroom teachers to highlight the results from home visits and to gather additional relevant information regarding learning challenges and other issues that may impede the learning process. Learning challenges include students who are highly capable and need more enrichment, as well as learners who need more intensive interventions. To attain as comprehensive a picture as possible, the Child Study Team uses standardized and classroom based assessments, work samples, observations in every classroom, playground and lunchroom interactions, and in-depth conversations with family caregivers and teachers in order to create strategies to support success for the learners. Our intensive model is supported by the work of Anderson-Butcher & Ashton (2004), "It is now evident that social, emotional, and physical health problems must be addressed if students are to learn and schools are to accomplish their educational missions (p. 39)."

We are intentional in developing interventions to address issues of concern. No two children are the same, therefore no two interventions are the same. Some examples of interventions include tutoring; having or being a mentor; specially designed instruction to increase challenge or provide extra support; leadership opportunities tailored to the individual learner; or spending time in classrooms with older or younger learners. Other interventions might include behavior contracts; contact with families; referrals for medical, dental, hearing, or vision screening and care; individual and group counseling; individual and small group social skills practice, and a host of other strategies. Interventions are monitored and evaluated for effectiveness and changed as needed.

Family Involvement Through the Staff Home Visit Program

We believe that families know their child best and the families' voices are essential in assuring that the learners' needs and strengths are met. Family involvement in children's education, known to be a major component of academic success, was very limited at T. T. Minor in 2001. Very few families participated in Parent-Teacher Conferences; evening events were well attended only during the meal portion of the program; there were few family volunteers in classrooms; and there was no Parent Teacher Association (PTA).

Many of the adults in children's families had had negative experiences in their own schooling, which we believe led to a sense of wariness and discomfort in being in the schoolhouse. Some of our students' families were not confident of their own educational strengths and therefore felt at a disadvantage when talking with staff at school.

Most significantly, the school staff was predominantly middle income and white, while most families are African American from a variety of income levels. The majority of the staff's inexperience in racial and cultural differences had had a significant impact on the level of family involvement in the school. Our staff's work on understanding institutional racism and telling our truths assisted us in developing a more appropriate level of competence in this area. Active recruitment and mentoring of teachers and other staff of color has also made a positive difference in the level of comfort families of color experience at school.

As noted by Bowen and Bowen, cited in Broussard (2003), " . . . research has shown that teacher practices that invite parents to participate in the education of their children are more critical in determining whether parents become involved than any family characteristic, including parent's socioeconomic, education, or marital status; family style; and child's grade level (p. 211)." We developed a staff home visit program whose purposes were to reach out to families in their own homes and communities; to build positive relationships between staff and parents, guardians, and other caregivers; and to acknowledge families as the experts on their children. Wasik, Ramey, Bryant, and Sparling (1990) conducted two longitudinal studies of early intervention strategies and concluded that the home visiting initiatives point to the positive relationship of the participants as the key to its effectiveness (pp. 1682-1696). Wasik, Bryant and Lyons (1990) found that for some families, especially those distrustful of motives of educational and government systems, building a trusting relationship through home visits was an essential first step to subsequently persuading them to participate in other aspects of center-based programs or parent groups. Home visiting and other intervention programs must be sensitive and responsive to the cultural ecology of their participants (Weiss, 1998).

At T. T. Minor, the staff home visit program became the foundation of massive change in the level of family involvement in student learning. We believe the key elements that were intentionally incorporated into the program design are essential for its success and are replicable in other settings:

Cultural sensitivity

Staff training

Universality

Timing

Participation of the full staff

Compensation for staff

Helping staff members improve cultural sensitivity is an ongoing process that was discussed earlier in this paper. The work we did individually and together to become more aware of our own and others' experiences related to race and culture was immeasurably helpful in conducting successful home visits.

The principal and school social worker provided home visit training to the full staff, including an opportunity to surface concerns and apprehensions about making home visits. The staff openly shared their fears and apprehensions about entering neighborhoods where they believed their safety was in jeopardy. They feared interacting with poor black families whose lifestyles they questioned. Prior to the visits, they could not fathom that families would welcome them into their homes. To address their fears, we instituted several safeguards:

Don't go into a home where you feel unsure of your safety

Assume welcome

Be a guest

Go with a partner

To ease the discomfort of the staff, we provided role-play practice for issues that concerned them. We clarified the purpose of the home visits. It was important for us to put ourselves in the shoes of our learners, so that we could more fully understand their life circumstances. We developed information packets and questions that would be used with all families. So as not to overwhelm families, no visit was scheduled for more than an hour, all questions were the same, and the families took charge of the conversation.

Universality proved to be a key factor in reassuring families that their child or family was not being singled out for any reason. When teachers asked for appointments, they let families know that they would be visiting every student in their class. Families visibly relaxed when they realized that everyone would receive a home visit. To include the significant number of families experiencing homelessness, visits occur at shelters, transitional housing, community centers, libraries, or the home of a friend of the family.

We conduct home visits during the week before school opens in the fall. At the conference, the teacher asks the family to share the child's strengths and interests, and to express any hopes they might have for specific learning for the coming year. The child is also asked to name some things they would like to learn. No behavioral issues are brought up during the home visit. Families and teachers see that each of them cares deeply about the child's learning and well-being. The teacher has a glimpse into the context of the child's experience, and the adult family members see the teacher in a setting where the family is in control.

We ask all staff members to participate in the home visit process. Our original intent was to allay some of the initial teacher discomfort by having teachers conduct home visits with a partner. Having a second staff member on the visit added to the families' feeling of belonging at the school, because there was one more person they already knew when school started.

The home visits, valuable as they were, nevertheless added a significant amount of work to the teachers' already full schedules. Preparation, scheduling appointments, travel time, the actual home visit itself, and paperwork require, on average, about 60 minutes per student. Accompanying staff spend an average of 30 minutes on travel and the home visit. The first year of the home visit program, teachers who had completed the home visits before the November Parent-Teacher conferences were compensated by substituting home visits for the three Parent Teacher conference days in the fall. Those who had not completed the home visits conducted them on the conference days. After the first year, many more conferences were completed during the three days set aside in August, largely as a result of the lessons we learned during the first year to streamline the preparation and scheduling process. In subsequent years, grants were obtained to pay staff extra time for the home visits. Arrangements were made with labor unions representing staff to assure that compensation issues were handled appropriately.

After the first few home visits had been made, each teacher commented that the experience was much more positive than they had expected. For the most part, families were welcoming and warm, children were thrilled to show their teacher their pets, toys, or books, and meetings were effective in building bridges between families and the school. Feedback from families was overwhelmingly positive, with very few families refusing to participate. In subsequent years, families commented that they were looking forward to the end-of-summer home visits.

Family Night Events

A calendar of events is developed early in the school year to provide monthly Family Nights focused on various academic areas (Reading, Math, Writing, Science, Social Studies). A simple dinner is served and the program includes fun, interesting, hands-on activities that families can do at home to support learning. Twice a year, we have a Portfolio Sharing evening, in which the learners guide their family members through a tour of their own Portfolio of work samples, explaining the assignment, why they or the teacher chose the item, and comparing their work in the fall to the work they produce at the end of the school year. In the spring we have an Art Show of student work. Participation in Family Night events averages between 80 and 150 people. In the coming year, we will ask families to participate in planning and organizing the Family Night program.

Special Events

Other special events include a Book Fair fundraiser; an end of year community celebration barbeque and field day; a dinner and conversation on the topic of puberty with 4th and 5th grade students and their adult family members; an orientation meeting for families of PreKindergarten, Kindergarten and other new students; and an informational meeting about the four-day Leadership Camp for 4th and 5th grade learners. We have more ideas than we have time and staff to implement. In the future, we would like to offer families parenting classes, a grandparents-raising-grandchildren support group, resume writing, computer skills, and other activities to support our families.

Conclusion

School autonomy at T. T. Minor Elementary School came about as a result of the systemic changes instituted to address the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of the learners. Our demonstrated effectiveness and positive student outcomes have led to our recognition as leaders in the area of school change by the State of Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

As Lorraine Monroe (1997) states in Nothing's Impossible:

It takes time to turn a troubled institution around, . . . But . . . we managed to send a clear signal to teachers, other staff, parents, and students that a new tone was being set—one with an emphasis on self-respect, discipline, and quality education. Little by little, the whole school community got the idea, and got involved (p. 122).

Intentional efforts to reach out, to welcome and to partner with the families of our learners have made an exciting difference in the school. Families and teachers work together to support student learning. Standardized test scores have steadily increased over the past four years, and other assessments demonstrate that learners are making at least a year's progress in a year's time, with many exceeding this rate of gain. The Child Study Team meets with families of students who are struggling, in order to formulate collaborative strategies to promote success. We are confident now, after four years, that working together with families, we have identified and provided interventions and supports to all students in the high need and medium need categories established at the annual Child Study Team school-wide reviews. The Parent Teacher Association is in its third year and is growing in its support of the school. A network of community partners provides support, mentors, tutors, grant funding, music and theater assemblies, math and chess instruction, and musical instruments.

By putting the needs of the learners first, by telling our own truths, by challenging ourselves as a whole staff to be brilliant, by reaching out to families and authentically inviting them to participate, and by creating solutions while adhering to regulatory guidelines, the leaders and staff of T. T. Minor Elementary School established an environment that earned the respect and support of students, families, the community, the school district, and the state.

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About the authors

Dr. Gloria Mitchell is the principal of T. T. Minor Elementary School in Seattle, a school engaged in a unique learning partnership with the New School Foundation. The recipient of many awards for excellence in teaching and leadership, she mentors new principals, and serves on the Washington State Professional Educators' Standards Board, the Washington Learn Commission, and the state Superintendent's Audit Team. Email Dr. Mitchell at glmitchell@seattleschools.org.

Since 2001, Lynn Winnemore has worked as a School Social Worker at T. T. Minor Elementary, an innovative, culturally diverse public school in Seattle. She has taught in the Master of Social Work program at the University of Washington and in the teacher certification program at Central Washington University. She has received recognition for her work in mentoring school social work students and the University of Washington Golden Feather Award.