| With the advent of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) initiative of 2002, many school districts had begun focusing on the Hispanic subpopulation for achievement on state assessments. That forced many districts to reform their instructional practices. In the 2002-2003 school year, the Hispanic subpopulation failed to make adequate yearly progress forcing the Blueberry School District to make large scale programmatic change to meet the needs of these students.;The programmatic changes included the implementation of instructional management teams (IMT), new technological programs for assessment and differentiated learning, as well as the introduction of data-driven decision-making. Using participatory action research, I focused specifically on the instructional management team as they handled the challenges of many of the endeavors and the issues that arose as a result of the programmatic change with the ultimate goal of enhancing achievement of Hispanic students.;Through my principle-centered leadership, I sought to empower teachers during the challenges. Since I was in a new position, and not part of the initial decision-making, I built a strong collaborative relationship with the facilitator who was hired to assist in the implementation. My beliefs about leadership guided me through the challenges of school reform.;I told the story through the lessons that I learned on the blueberry fields of my youth. I saw my research in phases, planting the seeds, the cultivation, bringing to fruition, and the harvest. In becoming a reflective practitioner, I discovered that I was able to lay the groundwork for shared decision making, differentiated learning, and data driven instruction. Surprisingly, I found that our original goal of targeting Hispanic students through the new programmatic changes was lost in the reforms that we instituted in trying to abide by the No Child Left Behind mandates. However, we have begun to lay the foundation for second order change in assisting the achievement of Hispanic students. |
