Outcomes of a mainstreaming program implemented in 1984 by the Winooski Public School District (Vermont) are presented in this paper. All children in the community receive their education in general education classrooms and community settings. This paper identifies the evolutionary processes and key organizational and instructional practices that…

Findings of a study that examined the level of teacher engagement in school reform in Chicago Public Schools and differences in the level of engagement across schools are presented in this paper. The School Reform Act of 1988 transferred much of the policymaking and administrative authority from the central school board to Local School Councils…

This study investigated the practicality and feasibility of the public school administrator permitting those concerned, faculty, students, parents and interested citizens, to participate in the decision making process of the local school. An added purpose was to find applicable and effective ways the principal could support meaningful…

Findings of a study that examined the effect of school restructuring, particularly increased teacher participative decision-making, on classroom teaching practices are presented in this paper. Data were derived from: (1) classroom observations of 33 elementary and senior high schools, which matched pilot with nonpilot schools, and (2) a…

Shared decision-making (SDM) is becoming a part of many American schools. Shared decision making is based on a premise that relies on four main assumptions: (1) those closest to the children will make the best decisions concerning the children's education; (2) teachers, parents, and school staff should have influence in policies; (3) those who…

Like school-based management, school-site councils offer some attractive reform possibilities, including broadly based, democratic decision-making; enhanced sensitivity to specific school climates; and widely shared responsibility. Site councils can be ineffective, even harmful, when lacking sufficient support, expertise, and time to succeed. This…

In today's workplace, organizations are moving from top-down, hierarchical decision making to team decisions based on consensus. This guide offers advice on setting the stage for team consensus to grow and on establishing an environment that fosters consensus. Topics of the four sections, the components of full consensus, are: (1) "Purposeful…

Extension educators can benefit from using a variety of styles when participating in learning and problem-solving coalitions. The first section of this paper describes nine stages of the coalition-building process, which can be grouped into three phases. In the emergence phase, issues and concerns have heated up and risen to the surface, and…

A project to increase group decision making at a Wyoming secondary school is described in this practicum report. The intervention was designed to improve the group decision-making skills of members of the faculty advisory council and of department chairs. A skill development model based on training, practicing, monitoring, receiving feedback, and…

Defining "participation" as subordinate involvement with decision making in the work process, a study examined how a group of subordinates interpreted or made sense of participation, and the role the leader played in the sense-making process. Interviews and observation techniques were used to capture the sense-making of individuals in…

Shared governance is an elusive concept for schools to grasp and put into action. For schools to move forward with shared governance implementation, they need to gain a clear, precise understanding of who is involved, what processes ensure that those targeted will actually be involved, what those individuals' efforts should focus on, and what…

To address the effectiveness, the process, and the results of decisionmaking groups that include both administrators and teachers, and to discern the difference between the effective and less effective decisionmaking groups, 107 test groups, each composed of one Florida elementary school principal and two teachers from the same school, were…

This presentation introduces the methods of negotiation and mediation in transdisciplinary decision-making, and applies the methods specifically to the educational needs and placements of students with disabilities. Four stages of mediation are described: problem identification, generation of problem-solving options, evaluation of options, and…

This paper describes a process for determining priorities within an extension unit. The process involves pooling the judgment of extension programmers to produce a valid "average" judgment, even where considerable diversity of opinion exists. Discussed first are the stages involved in program priority-setting, the budget-setting process,…

The concept of power, fundamental to understanding human interactions and institutions, remains puzzling, elusive, theoretically complex, and largely unexamined by practitioners. A school restructuring agenda that purportedly changes power relationships in schools is being proposed and tested throughout the country. Basic questions are being asked…