This document summarizes the organizational change process at a rural primary school in Georgia. It describes the school's profile, hierarchical structure, and mission. It notes that 4 years ago a new assistant principal introduced a positive discipline policy, which met resistance from teachers as it was not seen as necessary. Teacher absenteeism, tardiness, and willingness to go above and beyond have increased as the resistance has grown over 4 years without prevention strategies. The change has not been effective, with behavioral issues and teacher frustration increasing each year. Proper research, testing, and data collection were not conducted to ensure successful implementation of the new discipline policy.

1. Organizational Change
By:
Brandie Green

2. Organization’s Profile
• The organization’s function is an
institute of learning.
• Its a rural primary public school in
Hampton, Georgia.
• It serves about 700 students from
kindergarten to second grade.
• The mission is to provide a quality
education for all students and the
goals are reading, writing, and
arithmetic and modeling good
citizenship (R. Adams, personal
communication, September 27, 2010).

3. Structure
• There is a hierarchical structure
starting with the Principal and
the Assistant Principal.
• The school has a building
leadership team, which includes
the principal, assistant principal,
literacy coach, math coach,
counselor, and media specialist.
• They finalize all decisions that
affect the school.
• They pass and collect
information to and from the
grade level chairs who in turn
do the same with the teachers
in their grade level.

4. Observed and Unobserved Cultural
• The observed culture of
the organization is
positive (R. Adams,
personal communication,
September 27, 2010) and
professional.
• The unobserved culture is
unpredictable and non-
supportive.

5. • Four years ago the
Assistant Principal
at that time
received a job as
Principal at another
school.
• A new Assistant
Principal arrived
with a new idea…
positive discipline.

6. Resistance
• The organization experiences
resistance because the
change was not seen as
something that was
considered necessary.
• Teacher’s absenteeism and
tardiness has increased.
• Teacher’s no longer stay late
or come in early to go above
and beyond the call of duty.
• The resistance has over
powered the passion that was
once present.

7. Resistance and Prevention
• The change and resistance
process has gradually
increased over the course of
four years.
• It does not appear that this
resistance was anticipated.
• There were no apparent
prevention strategies put in
place. If there were they were
not effective because the
resistance is still taking place.
• Administration only mentions
that if faculty is not in
agreement with the change in
discipline then transfer papers
are needed.

8. Planning
• Before the change in the discipline policy implemented
fully, aspects were mentioned.
• Data regarding the School’s referrals were pointed out
early on.
• Before the belief in the policy was addressed it became
known that sending a student to the office was frowned
upon.

9. Effectiveness
• The change has not
been effective thus far.
• Behavioral issues
have increased each
year of the change and
teachers have become
worn out due to the
increase in their role
and lack of support.

10. Was it done well?
• Based on my observations, I
have not noticed anything done
well with this change and even
though the change was positive
discipline, nothing positive has
come out of it.
• Teachers are frustrated with
dealing with behavior
problems, instructional time
has decreased, and disruptive
students are aware that if they
are disruptive they will not have
consequences.

11. What should have been done
• In order to ensure success,
administration should have
implemented the new
discipline procedure by
“testing” it on a situational
basis and record the
outcome.
• Conducting research on the
socio economic status, along
with other factors of other
schools that were successful
with this type of discipline
procedure was necessary.
• The organization strongly
believes in research and
claims to be a data-driven
school but failed in the
discipline area.

12. Innovation and Change
• The leaders of the organization do not have any type of
measurement in place to determine success.
• They have manipulated the data, however they have
failed the faculty and the students within the building.
• The organization is striving for innovation.
• However, they do not have the steps in place needed to
properly engage in the learning process that innovation
produces.

13. References
• R. Adams, personal communication,
September 27, 2010.