Notes on “The Mill Town Case and Small Schools Reform”

Prepared by Ariadna73 Page 1 of 2

Situation leading to restructuring High school in a working class neighborhood

Never compared academically with wealthy cities in Suburban Boston But it has been doing worse in recent years

In 2000 it underwent a major restructuring

The principal hired in 2000 was surprised for the lack of a strategic long term view for the school. He created a strategic plan and proposed three models

Atlas Paideia The Coalition of essential schools (CES)

After voting, the CES model won

Received a grant in 2003 Bill and Melinda Gates also gave money The school started a conversion into smaller schools

2004-2005 were the transformation years

The teachers were assigned to work with their own small school The school was divided into four small schools of approximately 350 students each,

and a fifth Center for Vocational education with approximately 650 students Changes in the organization of teaching

o Most significant: structural Before, there were five wings. After, there was one school per wing Each school painted their doors and walls, and had different staff lounges The structure of teaching time changed dramatically

From seven class schedule to a six class one Class length from 57 to 73 minut5es Amount of teacher professional development changed dramatically

Limited to four in-service days per school year PD hours increased from 28 to 100 CPT = Common planning time: Groups of teachers gathering together

o Curricular changes Lowest level was eliminated Incorporated honors and non-honors students into the same classroom Tried to create a more personalized learning environment for students

o Changes in school culture They needed to differentiate between them The schools had no theme. They were just School 1, School 2, ... However, the staffs began to differentiate because they had different managers

School 1 was all into mission and vision In contrast, there was another school that was always doing impulsive stuff

Notes on “The Mill Town Case and Small Schools Reform”

Prepared by Ariadna73 Page 2 of 2

In 2005, the new five smaller schools opened and here are the results of the research on them

Trends Teachers felt better about their jobs Not a big change in the teaching practices Disciplinary incidents tended to decrease

Lingering problems

The amount of time for subject area teams to meet was greatly reduced The previous social network of the teachers was greatly disrupted

Teachers could not coincide with their teachers friends Teachers began to see fellow teachers as strangers

Issue of school autonomy

The school complained that they had only partial autonomy for hiring, curriculum, administration and budget

They shared the bell, the classrooms, the curriculum

Teachers started to see the CPT meetings as some abstract ideas not applicable in practice