Whitaker Middle School

Location
5135 NE Columbia Blvd.
Portland, Oregon 97218

Contacts
Lynn Buedefeldt, Principal
Cottrell White, Student Management Specialist
Phone: (503) 916-6470
E-mail: lbuedefeldt@pps.k12.or.us or cwhitejr@pps.k12.or.us

Setting: Urban
Size: 441 students
Student Mix: 47 percent African American, 19 percent Hispanic, 7 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, and 3 percent Native American; 81 percent qualify for the free and reduced-price meals program.

We would like to thank Cottrell White, student management specialist at Whitaker Middle School for sharing his Educational Leadership Project, from which we derived much information for this profile. We would also like to thank White and former Whitaker principal Tom Pickett for sharing their thoughts and experiences about trust and school reform at Whitaker.

Introduction

NWREL is partnering with 15 schools from our region to assist with school improvement efforts and build high-performing learning communities. One partner school, Whitaker Middle School, has trust building at the heart of its school improvement efforts. The following profile describes how the school used survey data, research, and a Comprehensive School Reform process to start conversations about rebuilding trust by forming a professional learning community.

In Context

In the past few years, the Whitaker school community has had more than its share of challenges. In August 2001, the original school was shut down because of health risks and the sixth-graders were placed in a separate building from the seventh- and eighth-graders. In Fall 2003, all the students were reunited at the current location.

A few years ago an ad hoc group called the Educational Crisis Team chose Whitaker as one of 14 Portland schools they wanted the district to take emergency action to improve. Test scores had been very low, and the 2001–2002 school year saw a 50 percent turnover in staff and three changes of administrators. Negative publicity has also haunted Whitaker. In early November 2002, an article in the local newspaper quoted teachers, students, parents, and administrators blaming each other for the lack of student achievement.

The district climate was negative as well. Declining state income tax revenues had cut state funding to the district by about $28 million dollars. After a state income tax increase ballot measure was voted down, lack of funds threatened to shut Portland Public Schools earlier than scheduled. At the final hour, to avert a teachers’ strike, the Portland Teachers Union bargained with the school district to give up several days of pay to restore some of the lost days to the school year.

School Improvement Efforts

With low student test scores, accompanied by sagging staff morale, the new administrators—Principal Tom Pickett and Assistant Principal Lynn Buedefeldt—were charged with restructuring the school and sought comprehensive strategies to accomplish this task. They led the school through the Title I Schoolwide Planning process, which included a needs assessment, inquiry process into possible solutions to address needs, and designing and integrating solutions into a unified program. Additionally, in Fall 2002 Whitaker became eligible to apply for a U.S. Department of Education Comprehensive School Reform grant (in Oregon, schools that receive a low or unacceptable rating on the Oregon Report Card are eligible to apply through the state). This grant supports the implementation of comprehensive school reforms based on scientifically based research and effective practices.

The required components of a CSR program are strong academic content and research-based strategies, measurable goals, support by and for staff, professional development, parental involvement, technical assistance, evaluation, and allocation of resources. Research on school reform suggests that leadership capacity for school improvement and buy-in from the staff are necessary for undertaking intensive planning and successful implementation of CSR—the school and district must be ready to go through the process (Leithwood, 2002; Schwartzbeck, 2002).

Readiness for school reform had been an obstacle in the past for Whitaker to receive a CSR grant. Because the staff had been so divided on the need for collaboration, said Pickett, the state didn’t consider them ready to implement comprehensive school reform.

Schools must demonstrate in a pre-qualification application and during a site visit by the Oregon Department of Education that there is a level of current school improvement efforts, district support for school improvement, leadership capacity (of the principal in particular), and an 80 percent commitment from 95 percent of the total staff. Chris Rhines, a Title I and CSR specialist with the Oregon Department of Education explains, "During our visit [to Whitaker] we outlined the good, the bad, and the ugly of the grant process and then staff completed the survey demonstrating their buy-in to go through such an arduous process." In the survey, staff must agree that:

• School improvement is a focus at the school and most staff members have supported past efforts to improve student achievement
• Leadership roles are shared and there are staff members who are considered key contributors to school improvement efforts
• Their input is valued and that staff members contribute to decisions made
• The staff can overcome and work through any differences and obstacles to the comprehensive school reform model

Whitaker staff scored 84 percent on the survey, and the site visit was very positive. Rhines indicated that strong leadership in their current administration was another positive factor in being considered for the grant. The previous vice principal, Buedefeldt is principal for the 2003–2004 school year, and "that continuity is critical," says Rhines.

Even with the positive survey and site visit, Principal Pickett was concerned about the solidity of the vote for CSR. Rhines explains that "after the school receives the grant and starts implementation, the staff must score at least 90 percent on the survey to receive continuation of funding." Additionally, some of the survey responses still indicated a need for improvement in many areas regarding trust and leadership at Whitaker. One respondent indicated that the staff wasn’t functioning as a strong team, and there was a level of mistrust among faculty because little time was being spent on careful team building. Another staff person commented that although Whitaker has made a vast improvement, "I question the commitment of the district, staff, and public based on previous efforts."

Project Assessing the Level of Organizational Trust

Concerns about building trust centered around two events that occurred about the same time: the CSR pre-qualification process, and the newspaper article that was so painful for all staff. In spite of the damage that the article caused, Pickett believed that the article served as a catalyst for the entire staff to be willing to discuss issues of trust. He also knew that the trust level in the school and the commitment to the CSR process needed to be strengthened, and he sought ideas for doing this from other staff, in particular Student Management Specialist Cottrell White.

White, who is enrolled in Portland State University’s Secondary Leadership program, needed to conduct an action research project that would have implications for school improvement and/or student achievement—specifically teaching, learning, supervision, and leadership. He became interested in examining and improving the level of organizational trust at Whitaker. "I have always been interested in the role of trust in the process of student learning and achievement," he says. "I have had many discussions [with the principal] about how it feels to be a staff member and what it means to be trusted." When White considered transferring to Whitaker from another school, he "immediately asked … how I could help be a part of the solution to the academic concerns." He wanted to use research-based practices that indicate building trust leads to staff collaboration and teamwork, which in turn may affect student achievement. Because he had worked with Pickett before in another school, a high level of trust existed between the two—Pickett’s trusting White to try new ideas, and White’s trust that Pickett would be supportive.

Trust Evaluation Committee

White’s project focused on "the keys to raising the trust levels of Whitaker Middle School staff." In December 2002, White invited volunteers to join a "trust evaluation committee." The task for the committee was to "define organizational trust and to make recommendations for the growth of trust at Whitaker." The committee strived to represent the interests of the entire staff and was also open to any staff member at any time. White presented the opportunity for this professional learning team to the entire staff at a Monday night staff meeting and had subsequent conversations with the staff about the parameters of the committee.

In January 2003, the committee chaired by White was piloted with 10 teachers, one school psychologist, one classified staff member, four support staff members, and seven community volunteers (parents, community-at-large, NWREL staff). Because White has no staff supervisory role, he was well-suited to the role of chair—the staff saw and trusted him as a colleague.

The committee met monthly for five months during which it analyzed the results of several surveys that provided data on trust levels from the entire staff, reviewed the Bryk and Schneider research on trust, and agreed upon Bryk and Schneider’s definition of trust, which includes respect, belief in each other’s competence, personal regard, integrity, and organizational trust: "the level of trust that exists when a teacher agrees to a practice in the classroom and that the agreed-upon practice will be carried out" (White, p. 9).

Once the committee reviewed the research and data that established trust as important for their school setting, they recommended to the entire staff that two co-facilitators be engaged to work with the entire staff to increase trust in the school, collaboration, and team-building. After the recommendation, the entire staff voted on engaging the facilitators. This vote was 95 percent partial to full support, which was a marked improvement from an informal survey taken earlier in the year, when there was almost no support for having a trust-building process.

Results

At the start of the project, White indicated that staff members were weary of engaging in collaboration and that they tended to work in isolation. However, once they understood that collaboration was crucial to school reform, and that they needed to build trust and collaboration to receive the CSR grant, they were much more committed to building trust and working together.

The trust project enabled much movement with the CSR process. In Spring 2003, there was a schoolwide effort to research different CSR models and the entire staff voted on the model they would adopt for their comprehensive school reform. Says White, "The success of the model we chose (Different Ways of Knowing) requires extreme collaboration among the staff," so building trust would have to be an ongoing process throughout the reform process. Inge Aldersebaes, a former NWREL partnership coordinator who had been on the committee, said that one of her roles was to help articulate to the committee and the entire staff the link between building trust and the success of their CSR process. "Your trust committee and the CSR process go hand in hand," emphasized Aldersebaes to the staff, and "there is research to support your trust building efforts."

During the period of the trust project, White noted several improvements in the school climate:

• The staff appeared to work more collaboratively in CSR committee groups (language arts, mathematics/science, behavior)
• Trust was now defined and included in the core values of the strategic plan
• The vote for the CSR grant increased from 84 percent in the pre-qualification application to 95 percent in the final grant submission
• The awareness of the need for organizational trust went from almost no support in an informal survey by the staff to 95 percent on a formal survey.

White acknowledges that much work still needs to be done toward building trust and collaboration for the reform process to succeed. He would like to analyze academic changes in test scores in a future study and recommends the trust study continue for three to five years and facilitators be hired to develop team building for the entire staff. White notes that the new principal Buedefeldt fully supports the trust committee, and plans are being discussed to continue the committee and to hire trust committee facilitators. Both White and Pickett believe that this initial trust building was necessary to get a positive vote on the collaborative school reform model and that the model may be able to act as a "treatment" for the lack of trust in the school, through the model’s emphasis on professional learning communities. It is White’s opinion that a five-year trust-building process is necessary for the collaborative school reform model, Different Ways of Knowing, to be successful with improving academic achievement.

Keys to Success

• Used survey data to determine levels of trust.
• Used research to gain understanding of how trust was related to collaboration, school improvement, and student performance, and to decide upon a definition of trust.
• Received full support from the administration. Not only did the administration support the project, but provided release time for 9–10 committee members to meet and conduct research.
• Communication and involvement between committee and rest of staff: White announced the project to the entire staff, educated the staff about the issue, and had discussions with them about possible parameters. The committee met frequently with small groups of staff at all levels.
• Use of external facilitators to provide a more objective view within an emotionally charged environment. NWREL staff and other external facilitators also provided a global view of comprehensive reform that linked trust to the CSR process.

Conclusion

To an outsider, what has transpired in the last year at Whitaker may not seem like monumental change. Certainly, no one could claim that the trust committee has solved all the problems or increased test scores directly. What has changed, though, is exciting and meaningful: a school staff that had such distrust of school reform and collaboration a year ago, had extremely low morale, had been demoralized by negative press, and had been told by the Oregon State Department of Education that they lacked the capacity for comprehensive reform, came together to discuss the issues of trust and the need for collaboration, and vote to adopt a collaborative school reform model. Says Pickett, "On the final CSR application, staff had a 94 percent vote of support for the CSR plan—this never would have happened if the intervention with the trust committee hadn’t occurred."

The challenges that Whitaker faces are not so unusual in high-poverty, low-performing schools. Other schools that NWREL has partnered with have also expressed concerns about trust and collaboration. What is inspiring about Whitaker is that the staff did not continue to be mired in negativity but moved forward to begin the process of engaging in reform to improve the academic achievement of the students. Whitaker staff learned that school reform is more than just choosing a model, it is about people making real change and trusting each other to follow through on building change.

(For more information about Oregon’s CSR application process see www.ode.state.or.us/iasa/CSR/index.htm and www.goodschools.gwu.edu/pubs/book/may03.html)