Shared Decision Making

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MIAMI, FL : SHARED DEOSION-MAKING

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Dad'e County, Florida, the nation's fourth largest school district with 260 schools and 225,000
students, has not let its size stop it from implementing innovative school site management
programs,

Miami's "School-Based Management/Shared Decision-Making" program gives individual
schools unprecedented autonomy over staffing, budgetary and instructional decisions
through the consensus decisions of an individual school's teachers and administrators.

Miami's programs are particularly remarkable given the district's size and demographiC
base. Miami's large Cuban population, and continuous influx of immigrants creates a host
of educational challenges.

The programs implemented at individual schools vary from peer evaluation plans for
teachers to decreasing class size in foreign language classes to paying teachers extra money
for developing school curriculum. The following are examples of the many of the changes
that have occurred or are underway.

.. A Contract of Compromise

Both the Miami School Board and the Cnited Teachers of Dade, an affiliate of the American
Federation of Teachers, agreed to. modiiy fonner district policies and proposals to promote
educational improvement. The \ltiami School Board and the union have agreed to liit
requirements regulating class size, the length of the school day and class period and the
distribution of class size. In addition, the union has redesign~ the grievance procedure to
allow incidents to be handled at the school site level.

How Does it Work.' Inside the Schools

:I In Miami: Instead of having principals evaluate teacher performance each
year, as had been the norm, teachers at ten schools have been trained to
evaluate their peers.

::J Sunset High School: To help students cope with personal and academ!c
problems and provide them with additional counseling, a team of teachers
agreed to shorten class periods by 5 minutes to create an additional 3j-rT':m;~e
"tutorial session."

CJ Nautilus Junior High School: An assistant principal was replaced 2\' :'.\ '

teachers whose time is di vided equally between teclching and provldlf1t';

disdplinary and counseling tasks. These teacher/principals are compe:',c1:c.~:

with an addition,ll S1200 ,1 vear.

Contact: Pat Tornillo, President
Florida Ed ucation Association/United/AFT
::nq S.W. 3rd Avenue
,\1 iami, FL 33129
(305) 854-0220



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HAMMOND, IN: REDESIGNING SCHOOLS FROM THE BOITOM UP

In Hammond, Indiana, a' growing number of decisions are now in the hands of school-site
committees composed of teachers, administrators, and community representatives.
Through the School Improvement Process (SIP) negotiated between the Hammond
Teachers Federation (HTF) and the Board of School Trustees, Hammond, an economically
hard-hit steel town, whose 25 schools serve 13,000 students, makes decisions about the
delivery of public education a little bit differently.

How Does it Work? --SIP's Guiding Principles

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Teams made up of teachers, administrators, parents and students serve on an individual
school's design team. From this design team, a "core" team is developed, comprised of
about ten to fifteen people, the majority of whom are teachers. There are no hard and fast
operational rules, other than the the design teams try to involve people on staff who are
viewed as leaders in order to create a balanced core team. The design teams are open to
anyone who is interested: likewise, any member of the staff can propose that a new design
team be formed around any issues of concern.

This group undertakes an extensive training program in communications and group
dynamics. Participa~ts are taught to continually rethink their positions with a view toward
consensus.

The core team spends a considerable amount of time developing a "vision of excellence" for
their school: How can the school be run as best as possible, both in the long and the short
run? All decisions are made by "team consensus," to ensure that no individual rights are
abused.

The Process at Work: Inside the Schools

::t Kenwood Elementary School: Rearranged the school day to ensure a
ninety-minute uninterrupted block of time would be devoted to reading
acti vities.

:J Hammond High School: Established a mentor program through "vhich
two teachers are released half-time to work with colleagues who want to
become more effective in the classroom. The math department is also
looking at ways to reorganize time periods so that students and teachers are
not always working within the confines of a fifty-minute structure.

;:J laFayette Elementary School: Revamped its kindergarten program and
established a junior/senior kindergarten and a transitional first grade, wh k;'
incorporate a wide range of hands-on activities in order to better meet the
needs of youngsters who are not developmentally ready for a traditioncJl
curriculum.

Contact: Patrick O'Rourke, President
Hammond Teachers Federation/HFT
3944-112 Hohman Street
Hammond, IN 46320
(219) 937-9554




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