Cautions and assurances for those who would design a small urban high school: bringing 20 years of research to the planning table

Abstract

The two authors share learning gleaned from personal, classroom experiences in small schools – both cautions and assurances – for other educators who may be embarking on a similar path. We worked at two different small high school sites in the Denver Public Schools, an urban district with an ethnically diverse student population of 78,000. We present a multi-vocal analysis of participants in both sites to identify consequential experiences and perspectives from five stakeholder groups: teachers, students, parents, administrators, and partners/advisers. For each stakeholder group, we document roles, goals, responsibilities and activity patterns. We summarise a set of findings identifying the conditions for success in a small school project.

Keywords:

• adolescents
• high school
• reform
• small schools
• urban

Introduction

During the four years 2002–6, both authors taught at different high school sites in the Manual High School Complex of the Denver Public Schools (DPS). In 2001, Denver's Manual High School was abruptly separated into three unique small schools, each with a different thematic curriculum focus (Boo 2007). The ‘Manual experiment’, as it came to be called, ended just as abruptly in 2006. In the fall of 2007, we two authors found ourselves designing curriculum for another new small school, the Denver Center for International Studies (DCIS), where we were eager to apply our experiences from the Manual experiment. This was our DCIS challenge: to design and maintain a wonderful school that is student-centred, theme-based and smaller than 800 students.

We believe that small schools are an important option for students andparents at this time in history, and recent analyses of learning environments support this position (Leithwood and Jantzi 2009; Stewart 2009). In a small school, learning is inherently meaningful. A small school is a learning community where teachers, administrators, students and parents support common and specific learning objectives and practices. Parents are involved in school support and decisions in multiple ways. They know and are comfortable with all of their children's teachers and administrators. Student safety is integral to the small schools approach, as all students are known and respected by their teachers and other students; also, they feel consistent and ongoing personal support for their interests and academic needs. The curriculum may include core values such as reflection, high expectations and diversity; it supports the school foci as an integral part of daily practice.

While it is widely recognised that school culture is important in the framing of student performance, in a small school, a unique school culture is carefully crafted by the faculty and parents based upon the school's thematic focus. For example, the decision of ‘bells’ vs. ‘no bells’ becomes clear when designing the culture to resemble a ‘business’ working environment rather than a manufacturing or military setting. Similarly, as students and teachers have greater influence on the curriculum, topics can be presented at a greater academic depth and with greater academic coherence (Kali et al. 2008). In general, instruction may be delivered in ways that are grounded in students’ ideas and experiences with personally relevant activities, rather than in general or theoretical terms, as in a traditional approach (Slotta 2005).

Finally, in a small school, teacher professional discourse is encouraged at a deeper level than usual, since departments are small and teachers gather as entire faculties. Typical topics would include student grouping options or specific pedagogical approaches, as well as subject-specific decisions such as: ‘what should be on the semester test?’. Topics for such professional discourse naturally converge with informal topics, and the process of professional development is one of facilitation for faculty, resulting in the experience of a meaningful school culture.

Background

The professional experiences of the two presenters occurred at the following two sites.

Manual High School

In 2001, this large public high school that had been plagued by numerous issues was divided into three small high schools, each with a specific curriculum focus or theme: Leadership; Arts and Culture (including English language acquisition); and Millennium Quest (maths, science and medicine). Each school had approximately 300 mostly minority students, one administrator, one counsellor and 12 teachers and support staff. Afourth administrator served as facility manager for the site, which boasted a newly remodelled physical education facility and an Olympic-sized pool. The Manual Complex continued to function programmatically like a comprehensive high school, providing a full spectrum of sports and drama programmes, AP (Advanced Placement) academic classes, a health clinic and social support services, but without district resources to support the reform project.

At the Manual Complex 71% of the students were Latino, 27% Black and 2% other (2003–4 statistics). In 2005–6, 92% of Manual's 909 students lived in poverty; 99% were students of colour. About a third of the students were non-English speaking, with that percentage consistently increasing since the inception of the three schools. This reform effort was supported with initial funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Small Schools Initiative. In February 2006, in a surprise move, the Denver Board of Education voted to close the school, redesign it, and begin anew with the freshman class of 2007. Approximately 650 juniors, sophomores and freshmen were discharged to other struggling local high schools in which to complete their education. In this way, the ‘Manual experiment’ was brought to an unceremonious close, without substantial consultations with teachers, parents or students.

The Denver Center for International Studies (DCIS)

DCIS is a unique small secondary school (grades 6–12) in the Denver Public Schools whose mission is dedicated to: ‘preparing students for college by developing multilingual, inter-cultural, competent citizens who are actively involved in our rapidly changing world’. The school, now a district magnet, is in its fourth year of operation (2009–10) in its own building and accommodates 650 students, with a student population that reflects the demographics of the greater Denver area. 1 The DCIS curriculum features five world language communities: Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian and Spanish. The ‘Passages’ programme requires that each junior-level student organise a faculty committee in support of her or his academic research on a topic of personal interest. Weekly professional development for faculty is embedded into the regular school schedule, maintaining collaborative curriculum planning teams in order to keep from falling back to old patterns that have not led to sufficient student success. DCIS is supported by over 20 local and international partner organisations.

Methodological approach and data sources

Substantial attention has been given by learning scientists to multi-vocal analyses where complex learning environments and communities are understood through careful evaluation of perspectives and contributions from participants (Koschmann et al. 2003; Medina et al. 2009). In her prior doctoral research, the first author performed a detailed analysis of stakeholders’ positions to understand the process of second-order change (Fullan 1991) in a small school (Slotta 1998). As a complement to this work, the second author's doctoral research compared a grounded theory analysis of the experience and perspectives of the Manual teachers’ stakeholder group (Fernandez 2007). The present article pursues a multi-vocal analysis of the Manual High School participants to identify experiences and perspectives from five stakeholder groups: teachers, students, parents, administrators, and advisers/partners. For each of these stakeholder groups, we document roles, goals, responsibilities and activity patterns. We then summarise the development of understandings for each stakeholder group, resulting in a set of findings about conditions in each setting. Finally, we apply this analysis in productive comparisons that can help DCIS faculty and administrators work towards their goals.

Researchers as stakeholders

It must be acknowledged that we, the researchers, were and are important stakeholders within these school experiments. It is important to describe our stake and heritage in the Denver Public Schools. The first author has been a professional educator for over 30 years. She has a doctorate in Curriculum, Leadership and Technology and is a national teaching award winner. She served as a lead teacher and curriculum developer in the Manual Complex, and the mathematics and science facilitator at the Denver Center for International Studies (DCIS). The second author is also a PhD educator with more than 25 years of teaching experience in a variety of alternative, charter and conventional schools inthe Denver area. She is currently the language arts facilitator at the Denver Center for International Studies (DCIS). Because of our consequential roles within these two school experiments, we do not attempt to separate our involvement from the systems that we analyse. We do, in our analysis, attempt to view ourselves objectively, in terms of the roles we played within Manual and the roles we currently play in DCIS.

Findings and discussion

Tables 1 and 2 summarise our substantive review process of the five stakeholder groups, including two ‘types’ of teachers that were identified, based on a coding of participation patterns.

Table 1. Stakeholder analysis for Manual High School experiment.

Manual High School ComplexStakeholder group/role	Goals	Responsibilities	Activity pattern
Teacher type no. 1	Focus exclusively on classroom instruction	To implement someone else's vision without question	As little reform work as possible
			Maintain traditional teacher role
Teacher type no. 2 new hires	Create a new form of school that provides effective care and academic instruction for urban youth	Parent contact in second language; home visits; advisement group; create new form of school	Weekly, 2 hour planning after school; facilitate meetings; defend the experiment from outside critics
Students Student type no. 1	Be first in the family to graduate	Publicly demonstrate learning for graduation Sibling care; homework; avoid gangs	Portfolio preparation (ongoing) Doing homework for one class in another class Not on task in class
Student type no. 2	Excel in sports – become a professional player	Play sports well	Not on task in class Passivity – best at copying things from chalkboard
	Both: attend college
Parent – highly variant: grandparents, single-parent, guardians, fosterers	Support student success in best perceived way	Provide secure room; food; clothing	15% parent or guardian in lock-up (estimated)
		Religious education	Activist – protest against school
		Attend round tables for student as requested	Volunteer at school– SLT committee
			Attend sports events
Administrator typesSchool no. 1 School no. 2	Save the experiment Implement that school's common vision	All: attend district meetings with other two principals; organise teacher committees; communicate district programmes and mandates	All: Unsuccessful advocacy with district for the model Set up meetings Attend and testify at court hearings Attend school board meetings Assure student records storage
		Student discipline
School no. 3	Be a hero; cultural bridge model
Facility manager	Quiet competence	Schedule sports events, building and grounds maintenance	Plan graduation, complex-wide events(Not – manage facility)
Partner organisations	Design a model for urban education reform	Provide advisers and facilitation services	Mandate and provide specific trainings for staff; spend out grant resources
	Peripheral influence	Financial support	Write reports
			Interview willing teachers and parents
			Coach administrators

Manual teachers of type no. 1 were seen as having less investment in the small school experiment, whereas those of type no. 2 were identified as actively involved in conceptualising and enacting the programme. Note that teachers of type no. 1 were not actively disruptive to the programme but were simply not capable of allocating the additional time and energy required to participate. Table 1 also identifies two student types, distinguished primarily by immigrant and traditional neighbourhood populations. The three principal types in Table 1 (Manual) are prototypes of the three Manual schools.

DCIS teachers of type no. 1 (see Table 2) were the original CIS faculty during the programme phase at West High School and moved, along with a principal, to form the new district secondary school, DCIS.

Table 2. Stakeholder analysis for DCIS Secondary School.

DCIS Stakeholder group/role	Goals	Responsibilities	Activity pattern
Teacher type no. 1 Moved with the programme from West HS	Celebrate a new school without the demands ofprincipal oversight	Excellence/experiencein teaching the unique course offerings Class-level guidance through advisement programme	High-energy classroom work Evaluate others' new ideas Share at annual faculty retreat
Teacher type no. 2 New hires	Frequently share ‘big ideas’ and past experiences to implement the theme of the school Contribute to partnership curriculum goal	Specific faculty committees Interest-based student clubs Special annual traditions/activities Create advisement programme	Brainstorm ideas Share pedagogical approaches Readily support school-wide innovation Share at annual faculty retreat
Students
Student population: highly diverse: ability, ELL, ethnicity, immigration status, SES, exchange students	Please parents Good grades Acceptance at ‘good college’ Earn a scholarship International travel	Publicly demonstrate learning for graduationHome work Option: host exchange student Exemplify DCIS ‘core values’	Portfolio preparation (ongoing)Travel and report Practise language-of-study High-level class participation Organise clubs Global issues – activists
Parent	Student excels School thrives	Required hours of volunteer service	Attend parent meetings
		Fundraising for travel Option: host exchange student	e-mail teachers Frequent teacher contact Teacher support
Monthly lunches for teachers
Monitor student achievement on line weekly
Administrators:	Both: Create a new school Create theme-based programme components	Both: district meetings attendance Communicate district mandates	Both: Budget oversight Facilitate teacher meetings; parent meetings Support theme (travel)
	Involve partners in programme and funding	Communicate unique school needs to district	Student–parent conferences
Administrator no.1	Assure eventful curriculum	Host international guests Work with parent groups Plan teacher professional development Coordinate with partners, including sponsors	Curriculum design meetings Plan and fund retreats (long-term planning) Achieve consensus on and implement programme plans Prioritise opportunities
Administrator no.2		Student discipline	State and district assessments Building use; transportation
			Student special activities (prom, community participation events)
			Hands-on assistance
Partner organisations	Support creation of new form of high school Assure mastery of 21st-century skills and concepts Publish new National Curriculum for network schools Involved in core implementation on site	Provide professional development events Provide theme-based curriculum units Provide framework of success – graduate outcomes Share network resources Provide feedback	Communication: newsletters, e-mails, electronic systems Organise financial support structure Organise professional development events Hold formative evaluations

Lessons learned from the Manual experiment

Although Tables 1 and 2 reveal a number of differences in the two small schools models, these following common points deserve mention:

•

The curriculum of both sites featured portfolio assessments and graduation presentations; both programmes focused on college preparation and success and also access to scholarship support (Landwehr 2003; Slotta and Linn 2009); both organised student support around an advisement programme; both featured core values which were integrated into advisement. At both sites faculties enjoyed professional development – although the two were quite different in planning and implementation. Opportunities were provided for parents for authentic engagement. Student concerns at both schools were handled through round-table meetings with parents.

These following role-based inadequacies, revealed in Table 1, were the source of ongoing struggle during the Manual experiment:

•	Teachers – An insufficient small school planning timeline resulted inteachers' limited assignment choices, plus the requirement to provide a comprehensive high school programme resulted in feelings of resentment and resistance.
•	Parents – Awkward, inconsistent and ineffective parent communication methods resulted in parents uninformed about student academic progress and school activities. Socially, the parents were generally uncomfortable with school as an institution.
•	Administrators – School administrators and advisers made all major programme decisions, resulting in general teacher disenfranchisement. The three separate school administrators competed for support and recognition. The district central office frequently blocked site-based decisions.
•	District – No district systems provided long-term support, neither advisory, evaluative nor financial. As the three small school sites encountered inevitable challenges, no common response mechanism existed to meet them. Often it was one of the stakeholder groups that responded in frustration by contacting the local press. The schools were asked to be both comprehensive and thematic, then criticised for fulfilling neither role adequately (Stiefel et al. 2009).
•	Advisers – Advisers and funders were not educators, and nor were they thoroughly familiar with the Manual site, resulting in fragmented, uninformative and unhelpful documentation. Advisers remained peripheral to the process.

Applying lessons from Manual in the DCIS setting

•	DCIS has avoided the teacher disengagement that weakened Manual because DCIS teachers choose to participate in the design process and welcome the challenge.
•	To alleviate the parent discomfort evident at Manual, DCIS parents have access to the student performance information, either at home or at the ‘parent room' of the school. Training in this technology is provided for parents and students during fall orientation. All parents are required to provide several hours of service to the school.
•	Some of the issues that arose at Manual between teachers and administrators have been avoided at DCIS because administrators facilitate discussions to make changes in plans as needed at DCIS. As needs and problems arise, teachers and administrators bring them to the appropriate stakeholder group for immediate resolution. There is one administrative team working in collaboration with parents and teachers.
•	The ineffective working relationships with adviser/network partners characteristic of Manual were based on a traditional model in which such agencies with specific approaches and agendas provided funding and attempted to influence the school from the outside. At DCIS, a more effective relationship in which advisers/network partners are involved with core implementation of the programme has been adopted (Honig 2009). The International Studies School Network (ISSN) is the primary adviser and supporter of DCIS; this agency of educators works in collaboration with universities and provides support in the forms of: a curriculum matrix, graduate outcomes, professional development and evaluation of progress using mutually agreed upon rubrics. Additional partners, such as Sister Cities and Western Union, provide regular on-site support and are integrated into the overall activities.
•	Across the Manual Complex, students were actively involved in programme and policy decisions through the district School Leadership Team; however, while these students were all from the same neighbourhood with a high percentage of language and poverty-related needs, DCIS students are representative of the demographics of the larger district. They must be interviewed for admission and must agree to strive towards proficiency in their academic work to remain at the school. Student test scores, attendance, course completion and graduation rates are much higher at DCIS than they were at Manual.

It is understood that in the nearly 10 years since the launching of the Manual experiment, research has documented correlations between poverty and student achievement as well as patterns in achievement of particular percentages of poverty in the student population. Research topics such as these and others on specifics of the organisation of small schools greatly advantage practitioners new to the field.

Current DCIS challenges and discussion

•	How to offer differentiated instructional levels while also accommodating theme requirements (requirements such as two additional social studies classes and a world language class).
•	How to design and encourage unique-to-the-theme learning and instructional approaches (such as international visitors in the classrooms, school-wide presentations by international dignitaries, and student travel during the regular school schedule) without threatening lower district and state assessment scores.
•	How to convince all stakeholders that experiential learning as detailed above is, in fact, the learning process and not extensions or ‘extras'.
•	How to remain honest to the unique learning goals and organisation of the small school in the midst of external pressures to excel in high-stakes testing and to provide all of the curricula and services ofa comprehensive high school (such as the sports and drama programmes at Manual).
•	How to maintain consistency between philosophy and practice (such as theme-based requirements that may take a student out of a particular class for a travel experience lasting several days, which may not be recognised by all teachers as a part of required learning).
•	How to support curriculum and theme requirements of a small school using the internet and instructional software.

The questions of the best form of schooling and the smoothest route to achieving it were addressed by the faculties in the two sites described in this article. School reform is clearly an ongoing dance of social trends and scientific inventions, involving the responsive efforts of caring educators in designing and delivering the best and most appropriate curricula for our emerging generations. At this particular time in history, as urban schools are struggling with the impacts of population trends and global indebtedness, little margin exists for invention and experimentation. Replicable results are demanded and, in the absence of such results, consequences are immediate and sometimes severe.

We have observed that local decision-makers, in haste to address political and economic realities, all too often cause unintended human collateral damage, particularly if struggling schools are closed or innovative models for change are implemented before planning is complete. Therefore, we purport that as we and other change agents share what we have learned, the next steps taken in the small schools movement can avoid known pitfalls. This will happen, however, only if those who support and fund such work – the districts, central offices and foundations – read and study those experiments and build the next schools on such informed plans.

Notes on contributors

OliveAnn Davis Slotta has been an innovator in urban school design since 1986. She has worked in classrooms with diverse students and their parents in the province of Québec and the states of Ohio and Colorado. Her work has been in response to the struggles of under-achieving adolescent students and the frustration of school districts successfully to meet them. She has received numerous state and national awards as a mathematics educator, including the Disney Company's American Teacher Award in 1992. She is listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World in 2010. She is currently teaching in the mathematics department of Metro State College of Denver.

Karen L. Fernandez has taught continuously in urban secondary settings since 1985. She has been a teacher leader in the design and implementation of five small schools focused on re-engaging disenfranchised student populations. She is listed in Who's Who Among America's Teachers and has received the Anti-Defamation League's World of Difference Award for her efforts to heighten awareness and appreciation of diversity. She is currently teaching language arts at the Denver Center for International Studies.

Notes

1. Prior to 2006, the Center for International Studies (CIS) operated for 20 years as a magnet programme within Denver's comprehensive West High School. In the fall of 2006 this programme and its small faculty moved and expanded to become the current DCIS with grades 6–12.