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SRN Study Kit

Study Kit Facilitator's Guide: Leading a Redesign Process

Provides resources to support your facilitation of this Study Kit and your leadership of your redesign process. This introductory guide examines the leadership role in the process of change and offers strategies for engaging stakeholders. It previews this Study Kit's resources and offers suggestions for accessing those resources in ways that best suit your context. Finally, it provides tools to support your leadership team in your use of this Study Kit and throughout your redesign process.

Leading a Redesign Process is divided into two main sections, each of which helps answer a key guiding question:

Leading Redesign: How do we lead a redesign process?

Leading the Study Kit: What knowledge do we need about the resources in this Study Kit to facilitate their effective use?

 

Study Kit Module A: Building the Case for Change

Provides resources to help your school community develop a deeper understanding of why comprehensive high schools are not designed to educate all students well, and thus what kinds of changes may be necessary. Tools are also included to help you identify the specific structures that your school may have inherited that get in the way of providing the quality of education you envision for your students.

Building the Case for Change is divided into two main sections, each of which helps answer a key guiding question:

Understanding The Past and Preparing for the Future How do the characteristics we have inherited from the comprehensive high schools designed a century ago impact learning opportunities for 21st century students?

Looking in the Mirror: Should We Change? What instructional practices and organizational systems seem to support student achievement at our school and which ones seem to stand in the way?

 

Study Kit Module B: Designing Effective Schools

Provides resources to help your school community explore the conditions and features of successful small schools and to begin to develop your own vision of what an effective school might look like. Its goal is to get you excited and knowledgeable about the possibilities and help you think like "edu-preneurs."

Designing Effective Schools is divided into three main sections, each of which helps answer a key guiding question:

Investigating the Features of Effective Small Schools: What are the conditions and design features that make schools effective and equitable?

Exploring Actual Small Schools: What strategies have others used to make their school effective and equitable and what is the evidence that they work?

Discovering Features We Value: What is our vision/dream for what we want our school to look like? What are the most important characteristics it would have?

 

Study Kit Module C: Moving From Here to There

Provides resources that will help you redesign your school's organizational structure. It includes research, analytical tools, and real-life case studies that can be used to create a concrete plan for redesigning your school into small schools.

Moving from Here to There is divided into three main sections, each of which helps answer a key guiding question:

Exploring Design Options:

1) What organizational design best supports our vision of a school that provides powerful teaching and learning opportunities?

Considering Implementation Options:

2) Once we have developed a redesign plan, how do we implement it?

3) How can we prepare for the pitfalls and challenges that we are likely to face?

relevant resources

"In all honesty, the Study Kit provided everything we needed to take a detailed look at school reform. We've used the videos for presentations to parents, staff, and students. The resource modules have guided our committees' efforts to agree on design principles and timeline, and in planning for community outreach and communications."

— High School Principal

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