Abstract
This article furthers research on the necessary components of what supports successful school turnaround, and also explores how and why two rural schools taking part in a Midwest State Turnaround School Project were successful in implementing school turnaround policy. Perceptions of building principals, district administrators, and regional support staff implementing turnaround policy were considered. Data were collected from 13 participants and analyses focused on the culture created and leadership provided by two rural school districts during the State Turnaround Schools Project implementation. Previous research has detailed district communication, district support of the turnaround principal, and shared leadership as important factors. However this article explores how and why the two participating rural school districts were successful implementing school turnaround and identifies the cultural and community conditions that support school turnaround in a rural setting.
Highlights
This study explored how four school districts, two rural and two urban, implemented a State Turnaround Schools Project
The intended structure of communication was to directly aid individual schools, which were supported by district-level personnel, to work with the Local Centers for Professional Development (LCPD) staff to implement the training provided by University of Virginia (UVA) staff
In order to better meet the needs of the teachers and principals as adult learners, the rural LCPD director felt if the participating turnaround schools were to make a difference in the communities they served, the building principals and school district administrators had to work closely with the UVA Turnaround staff to ensure ongoing support as the reform effort was implemented, strengthen the relationship between the school building principal and central office to ensure the turnaround school could focus entirely on implementing the reform effort, and work closely with the support of the LCPD to model specific professional development on how to use data to improve instructional staff member performance
Summary
This study explored how four school districts, two rural and two urban, implemented a State Turnaround Schools Project. The School Improvement Grant (SIG) initiative, which provides funding for the nation’s lowestperforming schools (U.S Department of Education [DOE], 2011), allows districts to use a portion of the grant funding to partner with nonprofit organizations to assist in turnaround initiatives (U.S DOE, 2010). These flexible funding mechanisms have created a large body of relatively recently written turnaround literature that contains methodological errors and provides an over reliance on standardized test scores to measure improved school performance (Trujillo & Renée, 2012). A one-size-fits-all approach does not work for organizational turnaround; strategies must be developed based on the demands specific to the industry (Harrigan, 1988)
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