1.2 Change and the knowledge base of educational administration  (Page 11/16)

There was some uneasiness, some not knowing what was going to happen, but it was nothing like those [seventhand eighth grade] teachers. And, we had a lot of excitement.

My biggest concern was the team…You’ve got to work with somebody. That scared me. What if I worked with somebodythat I can’t work with? That’s what we [sixth grade teachers] talked a lot about.

After one year of intense preparation, the sixth grade teachers and students successfully transitioned intothe existing middle schools. The sixth, seventh, and eighth grade configuration that was envisioned in the original middle schoolplan was finally completed. Study participants remembered their perceptions of the year that sixth grade teachers and studentsjoined the middle schools:

You know, teaching two subjects as opposed to six was heaven.

When the sixth grade teachers moved up, they brought their ideas, but by the same token, the people in thesebuildings took them under their arms and made them middle school people. No longer in self-contained classroom. We were all part ofa team.

We were very successful [in the middle school] because I remember parents were making decisions that they wouldtake their sixth graders back into the public school and out of private schools.

By having the seventh and eighth grades already operating in the school, I’m telling you now; it really softened the impact of getting the sixth grade involved. A two-yeargrace period to get the seventh and eighth grades running smoothly made all the difference in the attitudes and support level of theparents of the sixth graders too.

The Follow-up

After the sixth graders were integrated into the middle schools, the district appointed a Middle SchoolEvaluation Task Force to assess the results of the full change effort. With three years of implementation completed, all middleschool, parents, teachers, and students were surveyed about the effectiveness of academics, discipline, communication, orientation,rules, and school climate. The survey results were impressively positive. However, since then, no further evaluative or progressreports regarding the middle schools were ever made to the school board and middle schools were no longer discussed by the schoolboard as a policy issue. Soon after the survey results were publicized, the district eliminated the position of Middle SchoolCoordinator. As the primary responsibility for middle schools shifted from the district office to school sites, teachers andadministrators at each middle school began to guide the on-going evolution of the middle school concepts within their school.

To celebrate the progress of middle schools and to share their learning, the middle school principals invitedten teachers from each middle school to organize a district-wide conference for the opening of the fourth year of the middleschools. The conference included cross-school teams of teachers leading workshops and a luncheon with a keynote speaker. Theseworkshops were a testimony to the growing congruency between the teachers’and the district’s understandings of the middle school constructs and concepts. As one observer noted,“Our teachers had become leaders, and outside consultantswere no longer needed.”