MassInsight’s Comments on CCE’s Role

A selection of observations by Mass Insight about CCE’s role in the Duggan Middle School turnaround process, from:

Meeting the Turnaround Challenge: School Case Study—Duggan Middle School, Springfield MA
Prepared by Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, August 2009

“The Boston-based Center for Collaborative Education has provided extremely flexible support for the change initiative, and has largely succeeded in building internal capacity despite its limited authority and decision-making power.…CCE assists in all aspects of strategic planning, acts as a link to the district (and the state), and supports the leadership team.…”1 “CCE philosophy and procedures are already deeply embedded at the school…”2

“While CCE does not share accountability or authority with the school or district, the organization has played a key role in guiding the school (and some district operations) through the Co-Pilot conversion process, and has taken on the role of liaison between the school, the district, and the state. This assistance allows the principal to focus on teaching and learning within the building, as opposed to day-to-day operations.”3

“All Co-Pilot schools are partnered with the Center for Collaborative Education and CCE staff is shared among the sites. These coaches and consultants provide an important channel for communication between individual schools – currently the only way that lessons learned are being shared. When encountering a particular issue at Duggan, CCE staff is able to bring knowledge of best practices and experiences from the other sites to Duggan’s leadership.”4

“The turnaround process at Duggan is remarkable based on the speed in which the leadership was able to create solid governance structures and strong internal systems (while also relying on outside assistance when necessary). Duggan and CCE were given only five months to prepare and submit the school’s application to become a Co-Pilot school. Given the relatively loose management structure, much of the ultimate success depended upon internal capacity. [Principal] Swan and CCE set out to tackle this issue in the very beginning. CCE held a summer institute for Co-Pilot principals to help them understand their roles and newfound freedoms and to set initial goals for each conversion.

“Most of the professional development support CCE provided from August 2007 through January 2008 was focused on capacity building:  in August, the co-Pilot schools came together for a professional development institute focused on effective team-building and creating professional learning communities.  These models of collaboration helped Duggan assemble a Governing Board and a Leadership Team, as well as assess and extend teacher capacity by creating structured teams for subject and grade level leaders. All of this work helped the school’s staff work together as a coherent unit and to begin to develop a consistent culture among the school staff.”5

“As the school’s capacity increases, CCE is scaling back its intensive involvement. For example, CCE staff used to run the department meetings, but as the distributed leadership teams became established, they told CCE that they wanted to run their own meetings. While this limits CCE’s impact on every aspect of the school, it allows CCE to focus on the bigger issues (district funding, superintendent support, etc), and demonstrates that the school is establishing a sustainable structure.”6

The full report can be read or downloaded from Mass Insight:
http://www.massinsight.org/turnaround/reports.aspx (requires registering)
or from CCE: http://www.ccebos.org/Duggan_MS_CoPilot_June_2009.pdf