Abstract
Since the start of the United States' No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB), and now the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), schools that underperform have been under significant pressure to improve academic achievement. The responsibility for such improvement is placed on school leadership, namely school principals. The endeavor of school improvement takes on many forms since the process varies from one U.S. state to another, meaning that school “turnaround” is becoming a specialization within the work that a principal is already expected to perform. Principals of underperforming schools must therefore familiarize themselves with the specialized roles and responsibilities of the “turnaround principal” to yield results in their own schools. This case study takes a human performance technology approach to understand how one school successfully improved on-time graduation rates (i.e., within four years) by bringing a turnaround principal on board, then later sustaining results by hiring a permanent sustainment principal.
TopSetting The Stage
With the start of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the reality that fewer than 50 percent of Anyplace High School students actually earned a diploma became more public than ever. Dr. Findel (pseudonym), superintendent of Anyplace School District for the previous few years, observed that results lagged even though staff and students exerted effort and made marginal progress. When the state posted a school report card which emblazoned the school’s failure as a data point for all to see, it only confirmed what many community members had already felt or believed about Anyplace High School.
Yet as data became more readily available, a change in mindset emerged. Over time, the school district started to attract school leaders who were willing to make courageous moves that would drastically improve outcomes, even if those strategies defied current norms.
By 2009, Anyplace High School had initiated a tremendous amount of work towards improvement, and some positive results were realized; however, the school was still in need of a massive transformation. After careful reflection, Dr. Findel set out to create a new sense of urgency around improving student success at the secondary school level.
As defined by statutes in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Anyplace High School was identified as being in need of improvement. More specifically, the school was targeted due to its trend of graduating students at a rate on par with the bottom 5 percent of schools in the state. Through collaboration at the district level, Dr. Findel secured a federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) to support school reform at Anyplace High School. One of the grant’s contingencies required the implementation of a comprehensive school reform plan which involved replacing school personnel (Clifford, 2013; U.S. Department of Education, 2010b). Anyplace High School’s plan stipulated the replacement of the head principal with an interim turnaround principal charged with improving the school’s graduation rate.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Sustainment Principal: When a school has utilized a turnaround principal, it often finds itself in the position of having to replace that principal with a long-term school leader. A sustainment principal is a school leader strategically selected to replace a turnaround principal, sustaining improved results and furthering improvement.
School Turnaround: The process of leading and initiating school-wide reform to turn a low performing school into one with high performance results for students.
School Improvement: The process of managing change within a school setting to improve student success. Though improved student success is the goal of school improvement, the interventions within the school improvement process are often focused on the practices within the control of the adults in the school.
Turnaround Principal: When a school identifies that it has a system-wide need for improvement, a turnaround principal is a school leader carefully selected to lead the improvement process. Turnaround principals are sometimes a temporary leader, where they are put in place for specified amount of time while they assess needs and implement change in the school. Turnaround principals may be focused on specific results, such as improved graduation, student test scores, or climate and culture of students and staff.