The Leader's Role 

For fellow leaders embarking in similar reform efforts, here are several suggestions for your learning journey:

1. Plan to address the emotional aspects of change, and include in the plan a way for staff members’ emotions to be assessed and addressed.
2. Be cognizant that teachers may experience what Reeves calls “initiative fatigue.” Help alleviate the fatigue by attempting to understand teachers’ individual needs and by clarifying and narrowing the focus for the professional learning.
3. Be prepared to make and support structural changes within the school to sustain the reform, even though you may experience the “That is the way we have always done it” attitude.
4. Do not attempt to do all the work alone. By increasing leadership capacity, you may let go of some of the work and move a staff closer to a shared vision by having more people understand and work towards the vision.
5. Finally, be aware that many teachers will only trust you and commit to the reform when they see the benefit in the work for themselves or their students.

Dancing to Create Time for Learning 

A team of primary grade teachers struggled to find common meeting time during the school day. At the same time, the librarian, music teacher, art teacher, and guidance counselor struggled to implement their respective curricula within the constraints of their weekly lessons.

The librarian proposed mixing the students by grades and teaching integrated lessons for a 45-minute period each week. The specialists would design and implement the integrated curricula lessons with the help of paraprofessionals.

Students experienced highly engaging lessons with a different group of peers and teacher each week. Meanwhile, classroom teachers met to address ways to support academically struggling students. This program became known as “Word Dance,” because the learning often centered on learning the vocabulary of the curricula as students created, sang, performed, and danced.