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Research Paper
Erin Dilbeck
School of Education, Liberty University
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Email: [email protected]
Abstract
Yale Elementary School is a Preschool through Fifth-grade school in Aurora, Colorado. The
school serves five hundred people who speak over twenty different languages. Spanish, Dahari,
Arabic, and Pasto are the most prevalent languages spoken. Over fifty percent of the students at
Yale are multi-lingual learners. Being a Title I school threatened to be in the turnaround process,
they face a few problems. One identified problem is that teachers need to facilitate and provide
high-quality tier-one instruction by asking students to do the heavy cognitive lifting. This is due
to the limited conceptual understanding of the standards that must be built through professional
development and professional learning community meetings led by the leadership team. The
focus has been placed on the curriculum resource versus unpacking the standards. They are also
facing the problem that not all classroom teachers have a system to collect and analyze student
data regularly through active observation and formative and summative assessments. Need needs
to be in place to monitor the timely collection, analysis, and action planning of student data. The
last problem that Yale is facing is the inconsistent implementation of transparent classroom
practices and procedures based on the PBIS expectations and the inconsistent implementation of
school-wide expectations across classrooms. More time and consistency must be needed to plan
the implementation and specific steps to model, practice, and maintain school-wide and
classroom expectations. Coaching and feedback need to be provided.
Keywords: Organizational structure, organizational issue
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Yale Elementary
Yale Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado, serves over five hundred students who
speak over one hundred thirty different languages and come from over one hundred sixty
different countries. At the end of the 2022-2023 school year, The New Teacher Project
conducted a visit and identified the following areas of improvement. Based on the TNTP report,
only thirty-three percent of the classrooms provided intense instruction by asking students to do
the heavy lifting. This is due to a limited conceptual understanding of the standards that must be
built through professional development and professional learning community meetings led by the
leadership team. It was also identified that less than twenty-five percent of classroom teachers
had a system to collect and analyze data regularly during the school year through active
observation and formative and summative assessments. Due to the lack of a transparent system,
classroom teachers do not have a clear understanding of where students are based on data
collection and analysis done through daily progress monitoring (completing laps during lessons
to provide feedback, determine trends, and address student misconceptions), short cycle
assessments, and extended cycle assessments. Teachers do not understand the need to understand
where students are to plan and implement the next instructional steps that are differentiated for
student strengths and needs. The overall root cause is that no system in place monitors the timely
collection, analysis, and action planning of student data. Lastly, there needs to be more consistent
implementation of transparent classroom practices and procedures based on the PBIS
expectations and inconsistent implementation across classrooms of school-wide expectations.
This partly contributed to thirty-six suspensions during the 2022-2023 school year. There needs
to be more time and consistency in clearly planning the implementation and specific steps to
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model, practice, and maintain the school-wide and classroom expectations. Coaching and
feedback need to follow the management column and trajectory of the New Educator Playbook.
Organizational Structure
After thoroughly reviewing the identified organizational problems at Yale Elementary
School, it can be concluded that Yale operates as a rational organizational system. Rational
organizational systems are collectively oriented toward specific goals and exhibit a highly
formalized social structure (Davis & DeWitt, 2021). The rational perspective is one where
organizations can be seen as collective entities centered on achieving specific goals and having
highly formalized social structures. Social boundaries in rational systems are defined as having
two key factors: goal specificity and formal social structures. Formal social structures often
define the participants' roles and responsibilities and the system's expectations (Jaworsky, 2016).
Scott and Davis (2016) explain that from a standpoint of the rational system perspective,
organizations are designed to attain specific goals. Specific goals guide decisions about how the
organization structure will be designed (Scott & Davis, 2016). The rational system of an
organization is defined as formalization. The goal of the rational system is for employees to work
towards a common goal within the organization. Scott and Davis (2016) explain that social
structures and being highly formalized are two of the few characteristics of the rational system.
The rational system views employees as a group who use their skills to work towards specific
organizational goals. By looking at the overall bigger picture within an organization, it is evident
that there is a link between the theorists who believe that the rational system provides a formal
foundation. The rational system has a formal structure and identifies specific goals. Max Weber
stated that the rise of modernization in favor of a rational system. The rational system's
characteristics include organizations that follow bureaucratic structures. Rational system
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organizations possess a pyramidal command structure. Each department has a unique chart, and a
specific protocol is followed to reach the common goal. Another characteristic of the rational
system is using technical aspects within an organization. The Principal, Ms. Bryant, is concerned
regarding the alignment across the building, focusing on curriculum and instruction,
collaborative structures, and climate and culture to improve student achievement.
Organizational Environment
Yale Elementary School can be viewed as a social impact network in that it is a closely
linked, firmly united collection of people working toward the same goal, adapting over time, and
constantly moving events. Its goal is also to solve a defined social problem. Social impact
networks are a stage for many ongoing impacts to be addressed or resolved. For example, Yale is
a community of educators working toward the same goal of improved student achievement.
Associates, co-workers, colleagues, peers, or other personnel groups usually use this system to
work together on assignments and predominantly exchange ideas and learn in a networking
environment (Scott & Davis, 2016). For instance, Lead and Learn in Aurora Public Schools is a
cohort of leaders from all districts who share ideas, knowledge, and skills across organizational
buildings and bring that knowledge back to their school buildings. Lead and Learn focuses on
building leader relationships between school organizations to network to deepen understandings
of diversity, equity, and inclusion, focusing on student achievement.
Theories and Changes
Members of Yale Elementary School are resistant to change for several reasons: fear of
something new, fear of the unknown, fear that their position may become obsolete, and the idea
that the change will not be beneficial for the participant or for the organization. (Haesevoets, et
al., 2022). Older organizations tend to resist change and set in their ways.
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Approaches that leaders can take to make change efficient and effective. Most current
developments in organizational change happen in phases. Kotter's 8-Stage Change Model and
Lewin's Change Model have been tested and proven to yield positive results by many prominent
organizations. Change is a complex process requiring knowledge about the different change
management models to successfully implement the most effective organizational change.
Kotter's 8-step process for leading change is often utilized in the military. Similarly, Kurt
Lewin's Change Theory is another model used in the military and medical field. When used
correctly, an organization's leaders can better understand what it takes to successfully lead
change and implement it through the works of Kotter's 8-Stage Change Model and Kurt Lewin's
Change Theory Model.
Kurt Lewin's Change Theory Model involves three steps to implement change: unfreezing,
changing, and refreezing. According to Lewin, the change process entails perceiving that a
change is needed. In the unfreezing stage, leaders analyze the need for change, focusing on
creating opportunities for change, implementing change, and inspiring team members toward
change (Burnes, 2020). Next is moving toward the new, desired level of behavior. This stage is
the process of initiating change. Education will also occur during this stage. The last step in this
model is establishing a new way of doing business. The study of Morgan and Zeffane (2003)
states that during the change process, the leader's transparency reaffirms and enhances the trust
in the employee's involvement in the organizational change process regarding the discussion and
meetings whenever discussed in the organization; this allows employees to state their opinions
and achieve a better sense of control (Morgan & Zeffane, 2003). Lewin believed the key to
resolving social conflict was facilitating planned change through learning. The model focuses on
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people as the most valuable asset moving forward. Poor communication and lack of motivation
from the employee to act on change can lead to organizational issues.
Similarly, Kotter and Lewin's models highlight common principles of involving people in
transition from the outset, working with their feelings about change, and supporting change
through good communication and collaboration. Resistance is resolved through the successful
implementation of the change methodology selected. To address some issues, the Army's leaders
counsel their subordinates on the ACFT standards and listen to feedback. Part of the resolution is
to validate employees and let them know they are positively contributing to the overall
implementation of the ACFT.
Through research, and as noted in Minimizing Risk—The Application of Kotter's Change
Management Model on Customer Relationship Management Systems: A Case Study (Sittrop &
Crosthwaite, 2021 Kotter's 8-stage Change Model was introduced in the late 1990s, through his
book Leading Change. The purpose of Kotter's 8-stage Change Model was to assist organizations
in facilitating change, and it is widely used in education, healthcare, manufacturing, and even
not-for-profit companies. Unlike Lewin's Model, Kotter's 8-stage Change Model can benefit
anyone in any professional field. Kotter's eight stages included increasing urgency, building a
guiding team, developing the vision, communicating for buy-in, empowering action, creating
short-term wins, not letting up, and making changes stick. Romans 12:2 teaches Christians to
analyze situations to make adjustments and changes (Standard English Version, 2021).
The contingency theory proposes that an organization be flexible while respecting
employees' opinions. Organizations can select the best method by selecting multiple methods
simultaneously (Vidal et al., 2017). The contingency theory also suggested contingencies
permitting an organization to make necessary changes to the organizational infrastructure to
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address external factors. Weick's theory addresses the leaders within an organization. This theory
suggests that organizational leaders focus on the processes while carefully managing
departments. Weick's theory also suggests that stability can only be achieved within an
organization with the support of structures and routines. According to Weick's theory, leaders
should oversee all departments. Scott (2003) explains that caring for specific departments means
separating problems and easing identifying strengths and weaknesses.
In the text by Merida (2015), it is stated that King Solomon, a leader of his people, asked
God for the gift of wisdom. He posits that biblical wisdom is worship, insight, discernment,
morality, justice, and skill. Organizational leaders can implement the six dimensions of biblical
wisdom together to implement change management within the organization in a kind but
effective way. Leaders can gently influence and motivate members within the organization to see
the benefits and be good stewards of both human and capital resources.
Personal Perspective
To address issues within curriculum and instruction, with the leadership team's support,
all educators at Yale Elementary School should be supported in developing a deep, conceptual
understanding of the standards and how they progress Kifrom kindergarten through Fififthrade.
Teachers should use their understanding of the standards to plan lessons that incorporate high-
impact instructional strategies that allow students to hold the cognitive load throughout the
lesson and thus progress through mastery of standards. In order to build teacher capacity around
the thinking required by the grade-level standards, teachers should work vertically to unpack
standards; teachers will work vertically to unpack standards and identify the conceptual and
procedural understandings required. This can be done through lesson plan internalization
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focusing on unpacking the priority standards for literacy and math. All lesson plans should
include a standards-aligned exit task that meets the criteria of the standards. Lesson plans should
be checked each Friday for the standard aligned exit task, and feedback should be provided for
adjustments. Lesson plans should include a teacher-completed exemplar for the exit task. During
professional learning communities and lesson plan internalization, teachers should practice the
rollout of the model in order to calibrate and align the metacognitive think-aloud to build
conceptual understanding of the standard and procedural steps needed to demonstrate
understanding. This is a component of effective instruction that is delivered equitably across
classrooms. The coach and administration should observe the implementation of the practiced
step during the lesson to engage in the observation feedback cycle.
To address collaborative structures within Yale Elementary, leaders and teachers should
clearly understand where students are based on data collection and analysis done through daily
progress monitoring. Teachers should use their understanding of where students are to plan and
implement the best instructional steps that are differentiated for students' strengths and needs.
This can be done by completing laps during lessons to provide students with moment feedback,
determine trends, and address student misconceptions, including short-cycle and long-cycle
assessments. Professional learning should be provided for teachers to develop an understanding
of the purpose, function, and impact of the data-driven instruction process and cycles. The
leadership team at Yale should work with their grade level teams to identify the priority
standards as they backward plan from the summative assessments in each unit for math and
literacy. With each priority standard, teams should unpack the standard to determine the
conceptual and procedural understanding needed to master. The leadership team should be
trained on the district data collection platforms. This will allow the leadership team to support
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teachers in utilizing the platforms to improve data collection and analysis. Leadership should
work with their grade level teams to identify the priority standards as they backward plan from
the summative assessments in each unit for math and literacy. With each priority standard, the
team should unpack the standard to determine the conceptual and procedural understanding
needed for students to master the grade-level standard(s). The leadership team at Yale should
collaborate with the grade-level teams to identify the look for of the priority standard in each
lesson after backward planning. The team should determine the active monitoring laps for each
delivered lesson. The active monitoring plan will be present in the lesson plan submitted each
week. Teachers will actively monitor data for the lesson in order to address any misconceptions
at the moment to ensure a high success rate. Student data will be brought to weekly grade-level
data meetings.
To address the climate and culture of Yale Elementary School, all classroom teachers
should provide consistent implementation of school-wide expectations and have clear and
consistent classroom expectations that align with the PBIS vision. Student suspensions should be
decreased by fifty percent. Coaching and in-the-moment feedback around school-wide and
classroom expectations align with effective teaching as stated in quality standard two in Randa,
the Colorado Department of Education’s teacher effectiveness rating system. The leadership
team should review the PBIS system and process. All classrooms should build relationships and
support the whole child by incorporating SEL lessons, community circles, and strategies. All
classrooms should follow school-wide expectations throughout the building, having a clear
classroom expectation ladder hung in the classroom for student to see, and classrooms should
roll out their expectations, reviewing as often as needed. Students should know the expectations,
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routines, and procedures and take ownership. All grade-level classrooms should have SEL blocks
in their daily schedule.
Conclusion
To create a culture of change within Yale Elementary School, it is advised that the
organizational structure and systems be reevaluated. Yale Elementary should build a culture of
growth and trust within the organization to improve student achievement. This approach will
allow leadership to support all employees, their growth, and student performance. Yale
Elementary leadership and employees can work together toward the school’s curriculum and
instruction goals, culture and climate, and collaboration.
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