To an outsider, the tranquil suburban community near Madison, Wisconsin, seemed an unlikely setting for the harsh stories that people told. One dedicated community member was called a "school board lackey" at a public meeting. Rumors brewed of a "conspiracy" orchestrated from another state, and videotapes illustrating the "conspiracy" passed from neighbor to neighbor. Normally low-key school board elections started to boil over. Board members accustomed to pondering the details of a bus contract now faced questions like, "What is the exact ratio of performance-based assessment to norm-referenced assessments, and how do you think that's balanced?" Neighbors took sides, some joining a group called "Target the Basics" and others in favor of school changes joining "Back to the Future." There seemed little room in the middle. What was going on? How did things get so bad? How did they ever get back to any kind of balance?
Answering the first question is easy. The town of Verona was flying through the educational equivalent of turbulence. Much like airplane pilots, educators face varying levels of turbulence as they deal with changing situations and contentious issues. What might be called level one, or light turbulence, occurs in the presence of ongoing issues, such as too many good new ideas for the system to handle at once. People continue to work normally, but there are subtle signs of stress. At level two, moderate turbulence, everyone is aware of the issue; it has specific origins, such as communication problems between elementary grades and upper grades. At level three, severe turbulence, a crisis feeling prevails, and there is fear for the entire enterprise. Large-scale community demonstrations may occur. Possible causes include communitywide conflicts over values or an external threat to the school's future, such as a district decision to close a school. Verona was at level three.
The answer to the second question—how this happened—is also relatively easy. Two hundred new students pouring into the district annually for seven straight years meant building a new school every year. What was once a small town was becoming a bedroom community, and predictable patterns of life were suddenly a lot more complex. At the same time, vigorous work on school reform brought portfolio assessment, an emphasis on broad learning goals, and site-based management. Although there had been some community involvement in the change process, all sides had not been sufficiently heard. According to one highly respected community member, "The town was saying, 'Slow down, stop speaking educationese', and be careful.'"
How did Verona recover?
Six Steps Toward Calmer Skies
- Move from hot issues to less emotional ones. District leaders found they could help steer toward calmer skies by focusing on important but less controversial agenda items. Like skilled pilots in rough winds, Superintendent Bob Gilpatrick and Director of Instruction Linda Christensen remembered to use the controls still at their disposal. For instance, they still could select priorities for the board. This meant passing a referendum on a school building project and a comprehensive technology plan—issues that most board members could agree on. Contentious issues, such as developing a statement of learner outcomes, were removed from the table until there was a chance of facing them successfully.
- Stress consensus in decision making. Gilpatrick's work with the board emphasized consensus building and postponing votes until he felt that an action would have broad support. He learned who would support which issues, what was needed to gain allies, and what needed to be delayed for the future. The benefits of this strategy were evident almost immediately. The board members saw that they could cooperate, even though they had greatly differing views on education. The community saw that their schools could function and even progress during the worst of times.
- Have a neutral party listen deeply. Verona was lucky to have a board chair willing to build a solid center. Pam Scheibel listened to every viewpoint, finding and correcting errors in fact and figuring out just how far apart the two sides were. Once the emotion was drained from the arguments, each side appeared to have elements of common sense that the other could acknowledge. Those who favored change had a point when they said that yesterday's education seemed ill-suited for the 21st century. The old model involved too much sorting of students and generated too little enthusiasm for learning. But those on the other side also deserved to be heard. Why were changes made so quickly and without enough community consensus? Where was the proof that portfolio assessment was superior to standardized tests? Why wasn't the curriculum more clearly connected from year to year?The board chair also learned important lessons from her visits around the community. You can never have too much communication when considering major changes. Take time to speak to people. Don't endorse a new idea before you really understand it completely. If you are switching from a traditional report card to a portfolio system, for example, run them side by side for a while. Watch out for myths and don't let yourself become manipulated by one side or the other. Be a morale booster. Remember that teachers and students can suffer during times of turbulence. A friendly visit and a sympathetic ear really help.
- Develop a forum for dialogue. The first three steps deflated some of the crisis atmosphere, but Verona was still flying with the seat belt sign flashing. Somehow, the community needed to come together and find common ground. This meant achieving slow but perceptible progress over an extended time on an important task. It also meant finding a process that was orderly but open enough not to heighten suspicions. Verona's answer was to create a Strategic Planning Council whose charge was to rewrite the district's learner outcome statements. To guide the process, the community looked to its own resources and found a parent with suitable experience and no baggage from either side of the dispute. "If I am doing my job well, no one will know which side I am on," he told the group of board members, community representatives, teachers, and administrators. Although some argued that the council selection process favored educators, no one doubted the facilitator's evenhanded approach. Common ground rules like disagreeing in a civil manner and no playing "Gotcha!" guided the council's work. In addition, all of the council's 14 three-hour sessions were aired on local cable-access television so that every interested citizen could see the direction of the talks.Council members' behavior changed significantly over the course of the meetings. Whereas position statements dominated the first meeting, the last meeting found people from different sides working together to build ideas. On the way to creating a new document, called Educational Goals, the facilitator and the group learned a good deal. Listening to the two sides state their positions showed that they were not really that far apart, once the emotion subsided. But tough issues could not be avoided. The group had to answer the question, What did the community want for its children? Participants had to discuss academic rigor, as well as some fundamental values such as academic honesty. Just as the board chair learned not to be manipulated, the facilitator learned to step clear of code words. A "community of learners" caused some in the group to flare. Even "to demonstrate" was a charged phrase.Over the course of the spring and summer, this group brought results back to the community and showed Verona a clear patch in the dark sky. A new statement on academic achievement, character goals, learning environments, student assessment, system assessment, and follow-up initiatives showed that the community was coming together again.
- Remember your underlying strengths. "You can't sustain unhappiness for very long," mused one district leader. In the end, people recalled the long tradition of a stable community that supported its schools. They seemed to remember that they counted on their schools, that the system had served many children well for generations, and that Verona was not a terrible community on its way to destruction. Achievement scores remained stable throughout this crisis, and Verona received an award for the quality of its schools from a respected business association. Turmoil, people realized, was not a norm; it was a painful temporary exception.
- Get ready for some new options. The Strategic Planning Council delivered results, but everyone agreed more changes were on the way. "We're moving from a school system to a system of schools," Bob Gilpatrick explained. For instance, Verona established some of the first charter schools in Wisconsin, one emphasizing hands-on learning and another focusing on a Core Knowledge curriculum. District planning also shifted from a linear strategic planning model to a more free-flowing system able to handle rapidly shifting conditions.
One Truth About Flying
Verona weathered the storm and seemed to come out with better, more widely accepted plans. By following the six stabilizing steps, the community found that its fundamental spirit could prevail even while it understood that future turbulence was inevitable. Far from being shell-shocked, teachers, administrators, and parents said that the district was better for the experience. "We've learned how to listen to people instead of selling them the latest idea." The same clouds that cause turbulence, it seems, do have silver linings.
