Decision making in school-wide professional communities

This dissertation examines how two elementary schools with strong professional communities negotiated decision making and contestation. The research examined the schools' cultures and structures as well as several instances in each school in which important decisions were made in order to understand how these schools negotiated conflict and learn what conditions supported effective decision making. Data was collected through interviews with the teachers, observations of teacher meetings, and examination of school documents over the period of an academic year.; The study found that a complex set of interrelated cultural and structural factors combined to influence decision making norms, processes, and outcomes. School culture factors included having a share mission, building trust, taking ownership of problems, negotiating discourse styles when conflict occurred, and leadership style. Structural factors included the venues and processes for discussing and making decisions, the amount of meeting time, school size, hiring processes, and leadership structure. The interaction of these factors was particularly important, as each factor and the way it was enacted influenced how other factors played out. One example of this was school size. In the smaller school, it was easier to carry on full staff discussions; thus the school did not use a representative system. In the larger school, a representative body appeared to be necessary. However use of a representational system meant that teachers did not have the same level of ownership when decisions were made by this body. This led to less school wide consistency in the implementation of some decisions. In both schools the ability to select staff was important in building and maintaining a culture of shared values, vision and goals.; The policy environment of the state and district mandates associated with accountability sanctions based on standardized test scores impacted greatly these schools' realization of what it meant to be a schoolwide professional community. The agenda of much of the collaboration and staff meetings was in reaction to meeting external agenda items, rather than realizing goals decided on by staff, a change over which many staff members expressed frustration. Thus larger policy contexts must also be considered.