Making Change Happen

Educators will find more than sixty strategies and reflections to help guide the success of any new or experienced school leader. Beginning with methods of assessing the organization's culture, the book expands on ways to empower staff, students, and community members to embrace change. It is filled with creative approaches that make more out of less, work with individuals from an asset model, and assess results. This book examines the process used by one Colorado school to achieve two, five-year visions and to change its image in the community. Once staff, students, parents, and community stakeholders "catch the vision," programs, people and resources are aligned to promote success. As a result, the school, once slated for the financial chopping block, effectively moved from potential closure to national recognition as an exemplary program. Like its unique programs, most of the visions strategies can be replicated and adapted to any organizational setting. For aspiring or veteran principals or school leaders.

Educators will find more than sixty strategies and reflections to help guide the success of any new or experienced school leader. Beginning with methods of assessing the organization's culture, the book then expands on ways to empower staff, students, and community members to embrace change.

Bill Lamperes is the director of Transitional Services in the Peoria Unified School District #11, in Glendale, Arizona. He is engaged in the process of inventing several alternative programs for the district including redesigning summer school, community education, alternative schools, and the creation of a high-tech high school. He has taught elementary, junior high and senior high school social studies, was a social studies curriculum specialist for ten years, and served as a high school principal for twelve years.