SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Evidence of positive effects on student achievement
Year introduced in schools		1968
Number of schools		700
Support developer provides schools
First-year costs      with new staff      with current staff reassigned		$45,000 $32,000
= Strong	= Promising		= Marginal
= Mixed, Weak		? = No Research

OVERVIEW

The School Development Program (SDP) was founded in 1968 by James Comer, a child psychiatrist at Yale University. The approach is based on the theory that children learn better when they form strong relationships with the adults in their lives—including parents, teachers, and members of church and other community groups—in an environment of mutual respect. The main goal of the program is to develop in students the personal, social, and moral strengths necessary to achieve success in school. The School Development Program addresses these issues with nine essential elements:

• three mechanisms (the School Planning and Management Team, the Student and Staff Support Team, and the Parent Team);

• three operations (the Comprehensive School Plan, the Staff Development Plan, and Assessment and Modification); and

• three guiding principles (no-fault problem solving, consensus decision-making, and collaboration).

The School Development Program was first implemented in 1968 in two elementary schools in New Haven, Connecticut, and now operates in more than 700 schools. It is primarily an approach for elementary schools serving disadvantaged students, although it has also been used in middle and high schools.

EVIDENCE OF POSITIVE EFFECTS ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Strength of the Research Base. The School Development Program has promising research on student achievement effects. Research has been conducted by both the developers and independent evaluators, which lends strength to the findings. Twelve studies that presented student academic outcomes were available. Of these studies, three—one conducted by the developers and two conducted by independent researchers—were considered rigorous enough to report the findings here.

Eleven studies, including detailed case studies and studies collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, report on schools' use of the School Development Program and the factors related to its successful implementation. Four of these studies describe both implementation and student outcomes.

Effects on Students. The three rigorous studies on outcomes indicate that the School Development Program has positive effects on students' achievement. One research review, for example, found that schools using the School Development Program model had significantly higher academic achievement than that of non-School Development Program schools in reading, mathematics, and language, measured by scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and classroom grades. This finding is supported by the other two studies, which found that students in School Development Program schools tended to have higher test scores and grades, and to show greater improvement over time, compared to students who were not in such schools. Research also suggests that effects persist and may increase over time.

CENTRAL COMPONENTS

Organizational Change, Staffing, and Administrative Support. Implementing the School Development Program requires significant organizational change. The developers expect districts using this approach to have a facilitator to serve all schools using the approach. As described above, the three mechanisms, three operations, and three guiding principles must be implemented, each of which affects school organization, staff, and administration.

The first mechanism is the School Planning and Management Team, composed of approximately 12 teachers, parents, professional support staff (e.g., social workers, school psychologists), and paraprofessional staff (e.g., classroom aides, secretaries, janitors). The principal is the group leader. As described by the developers, the School Planning and Management Team has four major responsibilities: (1) establish policies that affect the curriculum, school environment, and staff development; (2) carry out school planning, resource assessment, program implementation, and evaluation of the curriculum, school environment, and staff development; (3) coordinate the activities of all individuals, groups, and programs in the school; and (4) work with parents to establish a calendar of social activities for the school.

The second mechanism is the Student and Staff Support Team, composed of teachers, school psychologists, social workers, special education teachers, counselors, and other support service staff. The Student and Staff Support Team provides input to the School Planning and Management Team on ways to integrate mental health principles into school management, to ensure that the school environment supports the students' learning and developmental needs. The Student and Staff Support Team also supports individual classroom teachers in regard to particular students who may be having difficulties with behavior or learning. The team is expected to meet weekly to discuss students referred by classroom teachers.

The third mechanism, the Parent Team, supports activities to involve parents in the school. There are different levels of participation, so parents can choose how involved they wish to be. All parents are encouraged to participate in several school-sponsored activities each year, such as a field trip to a museum. These activities allow parents to get to know members of the school staff, so they feel more comfortable with the school. Parents who wish to be involved more directly are encouraged to participate as classroom assistants, tutors, or aides. Finally, parents who are committed to being highly involved can participate as members of the School Planning and Management Team.

The operations that must be put into place include: adopting a Comprehensive School Plan, which lays out specific goals for the school in terms of both climate and academic areas; adopting a Staff Development Plan, which focuses teacher training on needs related to the goals specified in the Comprehensive School Plan; and developing a monitoring and assessment system to track progress toward meeting the school's goals.

The behavior and actions of staff are expected to be guided by three principles.

No-fault problem solving means that, when problems arise, individuals focus on finding solutions rather than assigning blame.

The second guiding principle is consensus decision making. The developers believe that consensus decision making is preferable to making decisions by majority vote. The idea is that reaching consensus forces individuals to discuss their differences and understand each other's points of view, while voting forces individuals to choose sides. In addition, voting results in "winners" and "losers," which is not conducive to building strong, mutually respectful relationships.

The third and final guiding principle is collaboration, which means that the principal and the teams work together to lead the school reform process.

Curriculum and Instruction. Although no particular curriculum is provided or required, the developers offer a curriculum called "Literacy Initiatives," for improving reading skills at the elementary school level. The developers also conduct a literacy audit with each school. According to the developers, this involves a review of state and district standards (especially in literacy, but across all subjects) as well as test score patterns over several years. School staff, working with the developers, then are supposed to identify standards upon which to focus.

Supplies and Materials. The School Development Program does not provide or require particular supplies or instructional materials. Decisions regarding supplies and materials are left to the discretion of the school. However, in addition to offering the Literacy Initiatives, the developers are working on "Curriculum Alignment for Instructional Improvement," linking schools' expectations of students with state and national standards, and linking those standards to school curricula, textbooks, tests, and class organization.

Scheduling and Grouping. The School Development Program does not offer guidelines for scheduling classes or for grouping students within classrooms. According to the developers, these decisions should be based on data about student performance and discussions of the school planning and management team.

Monitoring of Student Progress and Performance. According to developers, a key component of the approach is ongoing research on student achievement. A national database that tracks student academic performance, as well as student outcomes on multiple measures of school environment, is maintained. According to the developers, students identified as having reading problems through this process participate in reading labs using work stations.

Family and Community Involvement. The developers believe that parental involvement in the school is essential for students to achieve their potential. The Parent Program provides structured opportunities for parents to become involved in decision making, spend time in the classroom as tutors or aides, or simply participate in social activities involving the entire school community.

SUPPORT THE DEVELOPER PROVIDES SCHOOLS

Professional Development and Technical Assistance. An initial training session to orient participants to the approach is provided in May prior to the first year of implementation. This week-long workshop, held at Yale University, is attended by district facilitators and principals from participating schools; teachers and parents may also attend. The following February, the same group attends a second week-long session at Yale to address instructional and other issues that arise during implementation. At the end of the first year of implementation, principals may attend a Principals' Academy at Yale. The developers also offer an academy for teachers on child development.

Subsequent professional development activities are based on the training needs associated with the school's Comprehensive School Plan, as determined by the School Management and Planning Team. School Development Program staff train local facilitators to provide professional development at the school.

School Development Program staff visit schools twice each year to assess how well the approach is being implemented, facilitate district meetings, and provide guidance and training. Member schools receive quarterly newsletters and have access to a Web site. In addition, the approach offers other professional development activities, including satellite broadcasts, desktop videoconferencing, and regional training activities.

Implementation Requirements and Schools' Experiences. No formal vote is required for schools to adopt the School Development Program; however, it is expected that both school and district personnel have committed to the program after extensive discussion and examination. In addition, the School Development Program currently is accepting new members only in school districts that either already have or promise to have a sizable number of schools using the approach and have a commitment from the superintendent, board of education, and teachers union. The developers provide an implementation checklist to guide schools' implementation.

Several studies have identified factors that benefit the implementation of the School Development Program. First, the commitment of the principal has been shown to be essential to the successful implementation of the approach. Also, districtwide implementation has proven to be helpful for a number of reasons, including: (1) reducing competition between School Development Schools and non-School Development Schools in a district; (2) increasing the opportunities for networking among teachers; (3) broadening the community of parents; and (4) ensuring central-office support.

Some of the components of this approach are apparently quite difficult to implement. One study found that it was difficult to achieve the desired level of parent participation. Some schools have found that parents for whom English is a second language were hesitant to become involved because they had a hard time following the meetings. Another study found that it was difficult to get all staff on board—there was a tendency for the same group of teachers and parents to be involved with the process, while another group never became involved. Yet, regardless of these challenges, many schools have implemented the School Development Program successfully over a long period of time.

Researchers also have shown that students in schools using the School Development Program had significantly larger gains in various measures of self-concept over time. One study found significant differences on six different dimensions of self-concept: behavior, intellectual and school status, physical well-being, anxiety, popularity, and happiness and satisfaction. Another study found significant differences only on the intellectual and school status dimensions.

COSTS

The first-year cost of adopting the School Development Program is $45,000. This includes workshops for five teachers and the principal, including release time; technical assistance; a fee to the developer; and the salary for a quarter-time facilitator. Schools can lower this cost to $32,000 by reassigning a current staff member to serve as the facilitator.

Districts participating in the School Development Program pay an administrative fee of $5,000 per year to join. Schools can send staff to the Yale week-long workshops for $1,000 per person for each workshop. (Developers estimate approximately five teachers per school attend two workshops.) The principal's academy costs $1,000. School Development Program staff generally make two visits to the school each year for technical assistance, at $1,000 per visit plus travel expenses. The program recommends that districts budget for a full-time program facilitator, but notes that schools should be able to operate with a quarter-time facilitator. Additional expenses include staff release time and professional development.

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