1. Organizations and Systems
Organizations and Systems
Program Transcript
NARRATOR: As a leader in education, having knowledge of
both systems theory
and change theory will be key in affecting change in your
organization. Dr. Nancy
Blair explains these theories and analyzes the structure,
politics, and culture of
organizations.
2. DR. NANCY BLAIR: It's important for anybody who is
interested in leadership to
understand, first, organizations and what makes tick.
Typically, when people go
into leadership studies, they think of wherever they've been,
their context. And
usually, their context is a smaller context, an office or a
classroom. And if you
think about leadership in an organization, you have to telescope
out from that
and begin to think about the organization as a whole.
There's been a long history of thinking about organizational
development. Then
in the last 15 to 20 years, we've had some good thinkers out
there that have
helped us understand how organizations are really a system.
And therefore, we
have to understand what a system is.
Systems theory is relatively a new concept on the horizon as
we think about
organizations. So people like Edward Demming, Peter Senge,
and most recently
Margaret Wheatley, have helped us understand how systems
work. And the best
way I can explain it to you is to give you an analogy.
If you think about a mobile over a baby's crib, and you think
about all the pieces
that hang down from that mobile to entertain the baby, if you
were to come up
and touch one piece of it, what would happen to the mobile?
Well, what happens
is that the whole thing starts to move and shift.
4. Organizations and Systems
try to implement the change, that there are certain things you
need to do to get
the change underway. And most importantly, there are things
you need to do as
the change moves on into institutionalization so that the change
lasts. It's really
the implementation of good change theory and research on
change that allows
us to take a great idea into action and into something that really
has a long
lasting impact in the organization.
So if we have a good systems theory and understanding of how
5. systems work,
and good change theory and understanding of how change
occurs in an
organization, and those theories are based on research in the
field around what
works, then those theories really should guide our practice.
And that's the benefit
of having them. You don't have to reinvent the wheel every
time you want to
understand what's going on in an organization. And you don't
have to reinvent
the wheel every time you want to make change. You have a
theory that will guide
your practice. And it's important.
Lee Bolman and Terry Deal wrote a book several years ago
called Reframing
Organizations. And what they helped us do was take all of
this stuff in
organizations and think about how to categorize it. They came
up with four
pieces.
The first is the structural piece of organizations. And that's
where you tend to
think about something called bureaucracy. Organizations are
structured uniquely.
You might have a school that is structured very hierarchically
with a large urban
district, a large management system, that then puts decisions
down at the school
level, and then down at the classroom level.
Understanding the structure of an organization is critical if
you're going to move
that organization forward because it's that structure that helps
7. Organizations and Systems
for your organization. Politics is all about how we divide up
scarce resources. It's
how I get the piece of the pie that I need to run my school.
How I get the piece of
the budget to run my department, for example. So you not only
have to know the
structure and understand the people, but you have to understand
the political
climate, so that you can get your hands on the resources to
help you accomplish
the goals of the organization.
8. And then, the last piece they talk about is not quite as
concrete. It's called the
organizational culture. And culture is best described as the
way we do things
around here. Every organization is unique. And as you move
into an organization
it didn't just exist in that moment of time when you moved in. It
came from a long,
rich history.
And one of the mistakes leaders often make is that they don't
find out about that
history. They don't honor that history. And they don't respect
that history as they
try to move ahead.
I always tell people that when they go into a leadership of an
organization, the
thing they need to do is spend time living in it for a while,
talking to people,
listening to people. So in order to move ahead, you have to
first look back. You
have to understand the context of that the organization resides
in. You have to
understand the culture and where it came from. And you can
only do that by
talking with people and really listening to where this
organization has been before
you can begin to attempt to understand where this organization
needs to go.
Organizational culture is probably the piece that is the hardest
to discover, but
may be the most important to understand if you're going to
move an organization
forward.
10. Organizations and Systems
"No Child Left Behind" is this huge external context and
pressure point for
schools that's going to impact the way schools organize, the
demands they make
on the people within schools, the political resources that they
gather. So there's
always this interplay between what's happening in this
particular system and then
the larger system that it lives in, which is the societal
influences, the political
influences on a much larger scale.
11. When we think about creating change in an organization, it
often makes people
uneasy. Roland Barth once said that the only people that like
change are babies
and then only when necessary. So people tend to resist change
because it's
conflictive for them. It means I have to move from where I am
to someplace
different. And that's uncomfortable.
But conflict in an organization is absolutely necessary to
move the organization
forward. If there was no conflict, there would be no change.
And actually, that's
even a myth because there is no staying the way we are
because the world
around us is changing.
And as we relate it to the four pieces that we talked about,
any time you want to
change a structure, or someone's job description, or how we
gather resources, or
we have to cut resources---- which is all too often the case----
it creates tension and
conflict. So the leader's role is how do you productively take
the point of conflict
and turn it into an opportunity to see the value of where we're
going and how
being there is going to be better overall for the goal of the
organization than
where we are now?
This can all sound overwhelming. There's so much to think
about leading within
an organization. So what I often advise people to do is to start
small and to go
14. Case Scenario: Leading in an Organization
Case Scenario: Leading in an Organization
Program Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
--In this program, Mr. Craig Kupferberg, principal of Findlay
High School, explains
the impact of community demographics on student equity. He
describes his
vision for social change and discusses the leadership team's
goal to eliminate the
general tracking system. Mr. Kupferberg also discusses the
challenges the team
encountered and how the findings of their action research
study are guiding
future plans.
The program concludes with his reflections and
recommendations to other school
leaders who are in the midst of change.
CRAIG KUPFERBERG: Findlay is a, really, a wonderful place
to raise a family.
Findlay just recently was awarded one of the 100 best
communities in the United
15. States of America for youth. Because of the opportunities we
have here for
youth.
Some of the culture with Findlay is probably most famous for
Marathon Oil
Company. It was founded here by the Donnell family whose
name is still very
prevalent here in Findlay. Matter of fact, one of our middle
schools and our
football stadium is named after the Donnell family. And the
original Donnell
homes are still a centerpiece of the community.
The south end of town, as you go down South Main Street, is
some very large,
beautiful restored Victorian homes. As you move out to the
east part of town,
you'll find some very beautiful, large modern homes that are
still being developed
out on the east side.
And then more in the central and northern part of Findlay is
the part of the
community where it's more blue--collar worker in a lower
socioeconomic families
would be living.
To get a better understanding of our student population, go
back to the
description of the homes in the older restored Victorian homes
and the newer
homes out east. Those students come from a rather high
socioeconomic family
with tremendous support for education. These parents are
involved.
17. Case Scenario: Leading in an Organization
from a lower socioeconomic type of family. And the support
that we receive from
these families sometimes aren't like the higher
socioeconomic. It's hard to get
these families into the school to even conference with us about
their students, let
alone get them to volunteer on booster organizations and get
involved in the
school.
As I walk into Findlay High School today compared to when I
arrived to Findlay
High School back in 1989, one of the differences that I see in
the student
population is a bigger disparity in the student body itself. In
that, when I arrived in
1989, the vast majority of the student population came from
homes that were
extremely supportive of education. The students were very
much involved. And
they still are very much involved.
One of things I feel very strongly about and believe in public
education is that it is
for everyone. It's for every child. And one of things that I've
observed and
experienced throughout my professional career is people tend
to categorize and
try to label people differently. And I think it starts very
young.
18. In the elementary schools, you'll see students pairing off, even
in elementary
schools. I think we continue that throughout our adult life, as
well. In that, we for
some reason see a need, even in a community like Findlay,
that's very
homogeneous. To categorize and separate people into different
classes or
groups one way or another.
And one of the things that I noticed coming back to Findlay
High School. One of
the things that I wanted to challenge is that we had high
expectations for all of
our students. The Ohio Graduation Test that has been
implemented in Ohio,
even before Nickleby came about, really raised the bar for
our student
expectations.
And I was concerned, as the principal of Findlay High School,
that our general
classes and our general curriculum expectations for those
students were not high
enough to allow our general students to succeed.
Some of the things we did to come about and try to win some
of the staff member
and community members over is. I really went about it
backwards to begin with.
Because I really just made the decision unilaterally, on my
own. After reading the
research and my core beliefs, that the general track wasn't
being successful.
Looking at the data here, and the number of failures that we
were having in
20. first was the principal who was in this building prior to me,
Doctor Kathleen
Crates. She also, well she continues to work in the school
district. So she was
very easy to get a hold of. She's been very supportive of me
all along.
To get a little bit of history of how this has gone in the past.
If this is something
that she's tried. And what I learned from talking to her is that
this has been talked
about in the past. But there has been a huge amount of
dissension on the staff.
That they were talking about eliminating the general track at
one time, and she
put a stop to it, because of it.
And at that point, it became very clear to me that we had to
slow down the
change process a little bit. And really just started to think
about how can we
move forward without creating such a controversy over this.
That it couldn't
succeed. And talked with some of the teachers here that were
involved in the
decision. And also talked with some parents, kind of, on my
own, informally,
about some things. And came up with the idea of the
experimental and control
group.
I sat down with my administrative staff and brought to them
the idea of the
experimental and control group and started bouncing ideas off
of them. Where
we, as a group, really came up with the structure and idea of
21. how we were going
to work this experiment.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
VICKI BRUNN: I've been concerned, for the last several years,
even when I was
a teacher in the classroom, about our general track here at the
high school. It's
not a track where we have traditionally done a lot of
intervention trying to move
these students up to college prep.
It became almost a holding area for kids who were not
motivated enough to want
to do school. But just to try to help them get through,
especially with the OGT, or
the Ohio Graduation Test coming on. I was very concerned
about these kids
being successful and being able to get a diploma. Because I
don't feel that the
general track was preparing them to pass the Ohio Graduation
Test.
The discipline problems in the general classes are. It's
probably 75% of our
discipline issues that we have here at the high school, if not
higher. Because
when you put a group of students together who are all
unmotivated, they really
don't want to be here. They tend to feed off of each other. And
it creates issues
where there wouldn't be issues, if those students were with
students who were
motivated.
23. a college prep
atmosphere. Keeping the bar high and motivate them to get
through the material.
I've never been a proponent of tracking any more than
absolutely necessary. And
so I want to do interventions with the students who are not
getting the work done
and get them to a point where they're capable of doing the work
that they need to
do to graduate.
We just called it a pilot program to do away with a general
track. Because we still
have tracking at the high school. We have the honors AP track
for advanced
placement students. So if they were getting Cs or lower at
middle school, they
would probably think of putting them in a general track.
I then took that list of students who had signed up for the
general track and
began phone calls. I would call the parents. And we randomly
went with every
fourth student so that we could have a random sample. And I
would call. Ask the
parent and ask the student if they would be willing to be part
of this pilot project.
But we were concerned about the general track preparing them
for the Ohio
Graduation Test. So we wanted to form a class this year.
Putting some of our
general students in with our college prep students and see if
they were
successful. See if we could help them reach that bar that they
would need to, in
24. order to pass that test.
If the parent declined. And I did have two parents that said
they would rather not
because their student was struggling so much at the middle
school level. They
were concerned about them being successful. And so at that
point, I would go on
to the next student in the list and ask the same questions of
that family. Until we
got.
We wanted to have six students in that class. The purpose of
that was because
we looked at the ratio of our general students to our college
preparation students.
And we wanted to maintain that same ratio in this pilot
program. So out of 30
kids, we would generally have six that were general students
and then the 24
that were college prep students.
We met with the staff, and we told them that we wanted to do
this pilot project.
Gave them the reasons why. We did not tell them who the
teachers were going
to be that would receive these general kids into their college
prep classes. But
they all were aware that we were doing the project.
At that point, we had to spend time looking at these students
and how they were
progressing. And making sure that none of them were
struggling and falling
through the cracks. And then as the year progressed, we
looked at several
26. in our courses, there. And they were using data. As far as
our test results and our
test scores that we were given throughout the year, as a means
to measure
whether or not those general students were able to stay up
with the standards of
a college prep level course. That's the measurement that they
were primarily
using.
MANDI CROFT: They looked at mid--term grades. They …
Organizations and Systems Program Transcript NARRATOR:
As a leader in education, having knowledge of both systems
theory and change theory will be key in affecting change in
your organization. Dr. Nancy Blair explains these theories
and analyzes the structure, politics, and culture of
organizations.
DR. NANCY BLAIR: It's important for anybody who is
interested in leadership to understand, first, organizations and
what makes tick. Typically, when people go into leadership
studies, they think of wherever they've been, their context.
And usually, their context is a smaller context, an office or a
classroom. And if you think about leadership in an
organization, you have to telescope out from that and begin to
think about the organization as a whole.
There's been a long history of thinking about organizational
development. Then in the last 15 to 20 years, we've had some
good thinkers out there that have helped us understand how
organizations are really a system. And therefore, we have to
understand what a system is. Systems theory is relatively a
new concept on the horizon as we think about organizations.
So people like Edward Demming, Peter Senge, and most
recently Margaret Wheatley, have helped us understand how
systems work. And the best way I can explain it to you is to
give you an analogy.
28. theories really should guide our practice. And that's the
benefit of having them. You don't have to reinvent the wheel
every time you want to understand what's going on in an
organization. And you don't have to reinvent the wheel every
time you want to make change. You have a theory that will
guide your practice. And it's important.
Lee Bolman and Terry Deal wrote a book several years ago
called Reframing Organizations. And what they helped us do
was take all of this stuff in organizations and think about
how to categorize it. They came up with four pieces.
The first is the structural piece of organizations. And that's
where you tend to think about something called bureaucracy.
Organizations are structured uniquely. You might have a school
that is structured very hierarchically with a large urban
district, a large management system, that then puts decisions
down at the school level, and then down at the classroom
level.
Understanding the structure of an organization is critical if
you're going to move that organization forward because it's that
structure that helps us understand how this place works, how
the pieces work and fit together. But the structure alone is
not enough. You have to have other perspectives as well.
So the second one they talk about is the human resource
piece. And that's the perspective of all the people in the
organization. An organization isn't just departments and
divisions and layers. It's the people that work within those
departments and divisions and layers. And this is where we
get into that balance of is the organization structured just to
meet the needs of the organization or is the organization also
structured to meet the needs of the human beings within it? So
the human resource frame says we also better pay attention to
the people. And we better pay attention to the value they have
in this organization that they can contribute to it. So that's the
second piece of the puzzle.
That, again, is not enough. There's a third piece, the political
piece. This is an interesting one. Often, people new in
29. leadership don't like politics. But if you aren't a good politician
in a school district, you're not going to get what you need for
your organization. Politics is all about how we divide up
scarce resources. It's how I get the piece of the pie that I need
to run my school. How I get the piece of the budget to run my
department, for example. So you not only have to know the
structure and understand the people, but you have to understand
the political climate, so that you can get your hands on the
resources to help you accomplish the goals of the organization.
And then, the last piece they talk about is not quite as
concrete. It's called the organizational culture. And culture is
best described as the way we do things around here. Every
organization is unique. And as you move into an organization
it didn't just exist in that moment of time when you moved in. It
came from a long, rich history.
And one of the mistakes leaders often make is that they don't
find out about that history. They don't honor that history. And
they don't respect that history as they try to move ahead.
I always tell people that when they go into a leadership of an
organization, the thing they need to do is spend time living in
it for a while, talking to people, listening to people. So in order
to move ahead, you have to first look back. You have to
understand the context of that the organization resides in. You
have to understand the culture and where it came from. And you
can only do that by talking with people and really listening to
where this organization has been before you can begin to
attempt to understand where this organization needs to go.
Organizational culture is probably the piece that is the hardest
to discover, but may be the most important to understand if
you're going to move an organization forward.
So it's important to understand systems, that an organization is
an interconnected system, and that what leaders often want to
do is affect change in the system. But in order to do that, you
really have to understand the puzzle that is the organization.
And that puzzle, then, is made up of the four pieces that we've
talked about. The structural piece, how is it organized
31. it creates tension and conflict. So the leader's role is how do
you productively take the point of conflict and turn it into an
opportunity to see the value of where we're going and how
being there is going to be better overall for the goal of the
organization than where we are now?
This can all sound overwhelming. There's so much to think
about leading within an organization. So what I often advise
people to do is to start small and to go back into their
organization with a new set of eyes and to begin to look at
things.
For example, how are things interconnected? Look at a
decision that the principal makes. Look at a decision that a
department head makes. And begin to trace how that decision
connects to someone way over there that you hadn't even
anticipated that it would, or how it affects you in the role that
you play to try to understand all those connections. To
understand how the structure might shift, how it might impact
on an individual person in their role, how it might impact on
the resources that we get the next time we go up through the
budget process. It's really an awareness, an awakening, to the
complexity of an organization. And it's only by opening your
eyes and having that awareness that bit by bit by bit you'll
start to get that aha moment. And you'll see, oh, I now start to
get how all these pieces begin to fit together. And it's not until
you've had that aha moment that you can really be an effective
leader in an organization and telescope out and look at the
whole, not just all of the parts.
So once you've had that greater awareness and that moment of
aha, I see how things fit together, it's going to help you know
where to start. It's going to help you know where does my
leadership begin to interconnect with this organization?
Knowing the history, knowing the complexity, where's a good
entry point for me to begin to make the kind of change and
have the kind of impact that I want in the organization? You'll
be able to start proactivel
32. Case Scenario: Leading in an Organization Program Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] --
In this program, Mr. Craig Kupferberg, principal of Findlay
High School, explains the impact of community
demographics on student equity. He describes his vision for
social change and discusses the leadership team's goal to
eliminate the general tracking system. Mr. Kupferberg also
discusses the challenges the team encountered and how the
findings of their action research study are guiding future
plans.
The program concludes with his reflections and
recommendations to other school leaders who are in the midst
of change.
CRAIG KUPFERBERG: Findlay is a, really, a wonderful place
to raise a family. Findlay just recently was awarded one of the
100 best communities in the United States of America for
youth. Because of the opportunities we have here for youth.
Some of the culture with Findlay is probably most famous for
Marathon Oil Company. It was founded here by the Donnell
family whose name is still very prevalent here in Findlay.
Matter of fact, one of our middle schools and our football
stadium is named after the Donnell family. And the original
Donnell homes are still a centerpiece of the community.
The south end of town, as you go down South Main Street, is
some very large, beautiful restored Victorian homes. As you
move out to the east part of town, you'll find some very
beautiful, large modern homes that are still being developed
out on the east side. And then more in the central and northern
part of Findlay is the part of the community where it's more
blue--collar worker in a lower socioeconomic families
would be living.
To get a better understanding of our student population, go
back to the description of the homes in the older restored
Victorian homes and the newer homes out east. Those
students come from a rather high socioeconomic family
with tremendous support for education. These parents are
34. High School. One of the things that I wanted to challenge is
that we had high expectations for all of our students. The
Ohio Graduation Test that has been implemented in Ohio, even
before Nickleby came about, really raised the bar for our
student expectations.
And I was concerned, as the principal of Findlay High School,
that our general classes and our general curriculum
expectations for those students were not high enough to allow
our general students to succeed.
Some of the things we did to come about and try to win some
of the staff member and community members over is. I
really went about it backwards to begin with. Because I really
just made the decision unilaterally, on my own. After reading
the research and my core beliefs, that the general track wasn't
being successful. Looking at the data here, and the number of
failures that we were having in general classes. And I just
unilaterally said we're going to change.
Then I started to hear the complaints. And I started to realize
no matter what the research says, and no matter what we do. If
we don't go about this change appropriately and get people on
board, no matter how good the idea is and how good the
change is, it's going to fail.
Case Scenario: Leading in an Organization
So I started talking with different people. Matter of fact, one of
the people I called first was the principal who was in this
building prior to me, Doctor Kathleen Crates. She also, well
she continues to work in the school district. So she was very
easy to get a hold of. She's been very supportive of me all
along.
To get a little bit of history of how this has gone in the past.
If this is something that she's tried. And what I learned from
talking to her is that this has been talked about in the past.
But there has been a huge amount of dissension on the staff.
That they were talking about eliminating the general track at
one time, and she put a stop to it, because of it.
And at that point, it became very clear to me that we had to
35. slow down the change process a little bit. And really just
started to think about how can we move forward without
creating such a controversy over this. That it couldn't succeed.
And talked with some of the teachers here that were involved
in the decision. And also talked with some parents, kind of, on
my own, informally, about some things. And came up with the
idea of the experimental and control group.
I sat down with my administrative staff and brought to them
the idea of the experimental and control group and started
bouncing ideas off of them. Where we, as a group, really
came up with the structure and idea of how we were going to
work this experiment.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
VICKI BRUNN: I've been concerned, for the last several years,
even when I was a teacher in the classroom, about our
general track here at the high school. It's not a track where we
have traditionally done a lot of intervention trying to move
these students up to college prep. It became almost a holding
area for kids who were not motivated enough to want to do
school. But just to try to help them get through, especially
with the OGT, or the Ohio Graduation Test coming on. I was
very concerned about these kids being successful and being
able to get a diploma. Because I don't feel that the general track
was preparing them to pass the Ohio Graduation Test.
The discipline problems in the general classes are. It's
probably 75% of our discipline issues that we have here at
the high school, if not higher. Because when you put a group of
students together who are all unmotivated, they really don't
want to be here. They tend to feed off of each other. And it
creates issues where there wouldn't be issues, if those
students were with students who were motivated. So there are
several things that we were looking at. And as a freshman
principal, on the front lines, as far as the discipline. I had
teachers coming to me almost daily saying, it's impossible for
me to teach this class. I'm dealing with discipline the whole
period. I don't have a chance to teach them anything.
36. And so that was a large concern of mine, also. So we began to
look at ways to, without watering down the curriculum,
bringing these kids into a college prep atmosphere. Keeping the
bar high and motivate them to get through the material. I've
never been a proponent of tracking any more than absolutely
necessary. And so I want to do interventions with the students
who are not getting the work done and get them to a point
where they're capable of doing the work that they need to do to
graduate.
We just called it a pilot program to do away with a general
track. Because we still have tracking at the high school. We
have the honors AP track for advanced placement students. So
if they were getting Cs or lower at middle school, they
would probably think of putting them in a general track. I
then took that list of students who had signed up for the
general track and began phone calls. I would call the parents.
And we randomly went with every fourth student so that we
could have a random sample. And I would call. Ask the parent
and ask the student if they would be willing to be part of this
pilot project.
But we were concerned about the general track preparing them
for the Ohio Graduation Test. So we wanted to form a class
this year. Putting some of our general students in with our
college prep students and see if they were successful. See if
we could help them reach that bar that they would need to, in
order to pass that test.
If the parent declined. And I did have two parents that said
they would rather not because their student was struggling so
much at the middle school level. They were concerned about
them being successful. And so at that point, I would go on to
the next student in the list and ask the same questions of that
family. Until we got. We wanted to have six students in that
class. The purpose of that was because we looked at the ratio of
our general students to our college preparation students. And
we wanted to maintain that same ratio in this pilot program. So
out of 30 kids, we would generally have six that were general
37. students and then the 24 that were college prep students.
We met with the staff, and we told them that we wanted to do
this pilot project. Gave them the reasons why. We did not tell
them who the teachers were going to be that would receive
these general kids into their college prep classes. But they all
were aware that we were doing the project. At that point, we
had to spend time looking at these students and how they were
progressing. And making sure that none of them were
struggling and falling through the cracks. And then as the year
progressed, we looked at several things. We looked at the
academics of these students. We looked at the academics of
the college prep students that were in the same pilot group.
BILL BARBAREE: We had general level students in our
college prep level courses. We did not know which students
were brought in from the general level in our courses, there.
And they were using data. As far as our test results and our
test scores that we were given throughout the year, as a
means to measure whether or not those general students were
able to stay up with the standards of a college prep level
course. That's the measurement that they were primarily
using.
MANDI CROFT: They looked at mid--term grades. They
looked at the exam grades and compared them to a general
level class with all general kids and a college prep level class
with all, what we would call college prep students. And they
looked at the numbers to see what the percentages were and
where people fell with certain grade levels and great ranges.
And with that, they saw that the general kids who were in the
CP class were doing a little bit better than the kids who were
just in the general classes.
BILL BARBAREE: Besides the academic part of it, they also
looked at behavioral issues. And they were tracking the number
of detentions or behavioral problems from an all general
class compared to a mixed college prep and general class to
see if the social dynamics. If that helped out with the decrease
of behavioral problems that we experience in the classroom.
38. [MUSIC PLAYING]
CRAIG KUPFERBERG: I really expected the firestorm to
come from my general students' parents. That we were putting
them in a place that they couldn't succeed. And we were
setting them up for failure. I really didn't hear from that
segment of our community.
The segment of our community I heard from were the parents
at the college prep level. They were concerned that these
students would be coming into the class and pulling the
expectations down and disrupting the classroom environment. I
was also surprised to hear from some of my staff members.
Both staff members that deal with the more challenging
students as well as staff members that deal with some of our
very bright students.
SUSAN DAVIDSON: Tom does very well in school. He's a
bright young man. And he, at the time, knew for certain that he
was going to take honors level math, which would be algebra
two and science. And we were considering whether or not he
should do the honors route, honors track, for the English,
which is honors English, and AP American history.
He's a very self motivated young man. Very focused. He's also
a perfectionist. So I guess at that point, my husband and I had
concerns that would it be too much if he would take all honors
classes. We believe, of course, academics is very important.
As a teacher here, that's, of course, a main concern for my
own children and my students.
And so I went to our principal, Craig Kupferberg, having these
concerns about combining college prep and general students in
the same class. I see them as being two diverse groups. These
students have different abilities, interests, needs. Perhaps, we
could say goals in life. Different levels of motivation. And so
I was concerned. Because I thought if Tom went that route
instead of the honors AP classes, would he be challenged
enough.
In the end, through conversing with different teachers here.
Thinking about it. Looking at the pros and cons of each. Our
39. son went the route of the honors AP classes. So he had all four
honors AP classes last year.
As a parent, I would hope that if a school is considering doing
this, combining the general and college prep classes, I believe
it's very important to get different perspectives. From the
teachers in the school, from parents of the children at the
school, in the community, from students.
Because, I suppose you could say, that research could back up
any point of view you have. Whether you believe the tracking
isn't good, you can find research to back that up. On the other
hand, if you believe that tracking is good, you could also find
research to back that up.
So I believe it's important to listen to both sides, before a
decision is made. And once that decision is made, whether
you agree with it or not, to follow up. Which they will be
doing here at Findlay High School with finding out if it really
is working, of course, which would take time to determine if
this new program is working. But I think it's important to
listen to all viewpoints in order to make a decision.
BARBARA BORMUTH: This is my 32nd year of teaching. I
began my career at a small county school in Vanlue, Ohio.
And then I transferred here. And I have been a teacher here
since 1978. Here we had four tracks. Honors, college prep,
general, basic. I have taught all the levels except honors. I've
taught sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
The philosophy of tracking is the idea that you put students
who are of a similar level into a classroom. So the teacher
may be able to work one--on--one more often with them. Be
able to address their needs. Because most of them will have
the same needs.
By eliminating the tracking, we lose that perspective. When we
put general students in with college prep students, we are
creating a situation where you have a wider spectrum of
student levels to work with.
Another concern that I have is the possibility of watering
down the curriculum to meet the needs of these students. I
40. know that we had to change the types of novels that we taught.
We now are going to have students who are very academically
oriented and those who are not.
The driving force behind this change was the Ohio Graduation
Test. The administration was very concerned, as all of us
were, about whether or not our students would be able to
pass the parts of that test without having exposure to college
prep material.
The bottom line is we did well. English did very, very well. I
believe, 90--some percent of our students passed the reading.
In the upper 80%, passed the writing. And that was without the
changes. CRAIG KUPFERBERG: One of the things I feel very
strongly about in handling dissentions, is that you really need
to make the person understand that you are listening. That you
are trying to hear their side of the issue, as well. And one
very good way is by asking questions of the person.
Because then not only are you hearing, but you're trying to seek
input from the person, as well.
We have some of the more traditional methods for teachers to
voice their dissension or bring ideas to the table. In the
faculty advisory council. Through the union. We have a
faculty president that meets with the administration on a
weekly basis. So they have these different ways to
communicate and bring ideas to the table. But I wanted to
expand on that.
One of the things that we've started here, since I've been here,
is collaborative teams. Every Thursday morning, we delay
school 15 minutes. We were able to work that out so that our
academic classes are all the same length.
We have a homeroom period that's 15 minutes in length. So all
we really did was eliminate that. So we give that time to the
teachers, as well as an additional half hour that they had
anyway, to meet in collaborative groups that they determine.
And different things that we're experimenting with. What we
called an input board.
And there's four quadrants. There's one for issues. There's one
42. So if the data shows that we need to eliminate the general track
as we move along that curriculum, we'll change. It will not be
watered down because we're moving the general students in,
but it will change. It would also change if we kept the general
track. We're constantly looking at what our literature is going
to be. And constantly making those changes.
One of the things, when I come into our English classes and
observe what's going on. I see students that are actively
participating. You can't tell which students are college prep
students, which students are general students.
As a matter of fact, when we did our experiments. And one of
the teachers accidentally found out that she was involved in
an experiment. She tried to determine which were college prep
and which were general students. And every time she thought
someone was a general student, she wasn't even correct.
And as I sit around the class and watch our students become
actively involved. Because that is one of the expectations I set
for our teachers. Is that I want to see students actively
involved in the lessons. I see them all being actively
involved. And I can't tell which students would have been
general students and which ones would have been college prep.
They come together as a class.
VICKI BRUNN: One of the effects that this pilot project has
had, which we really weren't concerned about at the
beginning. But it's been a real positive experience for students
socioeconomically, also and socially. We tend to have social
tracking here, even though that's not the intent.
And what we found is the students who are in our general
track tend to be lower socioeconomic students. And what this
has done is it's intermixed those kids in with the college prep
kids, who tend to be from a higher socioeconomic classes. And
it gives them a chance to be together and make friends with
each other. And I think that's beneficial, also.
Which it also leads to self esteem, as far as not feeling like
you can't do it. Because you're in the general track. And you're
in the dumb classes. And students know that that's where they
43. are. And then that one of the reasons that they tend to just
give up. And they're not motivated. It may not even be that
they are thinking about, I don't want to be here. I don't want an
education. But I'm in this class because I'm stupid. And I can't
do this. And so that has taken that barrier away for the
students, also.
It's also impacted the social climate with our staff here at the
high school. I think it's helped us to work together more
closely, as a group. We've all always been a close--knit group,
here in the freshman wing. Because we're a building within a
building. And we have approximately 20 to 25 staff members.
And then me, as the principal in the freshman wing.
And so I like to think that we have a pretty good relationship.
But this has even made it better. We've discussed issues like
the discipline issues that are coming out of our general classes
and not coming out of this pilot class. And we've also
discussed how it's important not to lower expectations. And it's
been a positive thing.
We've also discussed what's going to happen if this doesn't
work. Because this is still in the trial stages. We're still in our
first year as a pilot, with the entire freshman wing. And so
just meeting together and talking about that has created a
collaborative feeling between the staff members and myself.
BILL BARBAREE: I was glad to be part of the pilot. To be
honest, I was skeptical at the beginning. Because going through
public education myself, I was in many classes that were
what we would call general classes. Well, non--tracking. And it
seemed like I didn't get as much out of those classes as I
thought I could. Because the course was watered down or
geared towards the middle of the class, instead of being more
challenging. And then as I took AP courses, and I was more
challenged. And was able to further my education that away.
So that was a fear that I had, just from my own experience. I
didn't want that to happen here at Findlay. I didn't want the
college prep child to be slighted, either. And having the course
be lowered.
44. But I think, as educators, as long as we maintain …
D:findley high school document.pdf
D:Organizations and Systems.pdf
