Site Visits
Seeing Schools in Action

prepared by Allison Seyler and Barbara E. Buswell, PEAK Parent Center

Introduction by Janet R. Vohs, PEER Project

Introduction

What does it really mean to say schools can work for all students? What would a school that works for all students look like? While the famous retort, "I’ll know it when I see it" may have some merit, it lacks the power of real-life examples to communicate an idea effectively. One way to make sense of education reform is to build an album of mental pictures of effective education reform practices in action.

This PEER Information Brief  is based on materials the PEER Project developed to guide teams of parents and professionals in conducting site visits to schools. The PEER Project sponsored site visits in various parts of the country to schools engaged in education reform where inclusion of students with disabilities was an integral dimension of their reform efforts. As a tool to prepare site visit team members, PEER developed a series of guiding questions, an overall protocol for conducting the visit and for post-visit debriefing, and information on site-visit etiquette. Participants found the approach helpful for generating ideas and for identifying potentially effective strategies that could be used in their own communities. While the PEER Project sponsored teams of parent leaders and professional educators, individual parents and parent leaders can easily adapt the ideas in this Information Brief  to their own schools.
 
 

Team Approach

For promoting school-wide change, site visits are most productive when a team of representative members from the school — for example, an administrator, a classroom teacher, a special education teacher, a paraprofessional, parents of children with and without disabilities — visit a school actively engaged in school reform.

When deciding on a team for a site visit, some important questions to consider are:

1. What contribution do you believe your team will be able to make to improve your school?
2. What do you think a visit would contribute to your efforts to effect change that would benefit all students?
3. What school reform initiatives are you and other team members most excited about?
4. What experience do members of your team have in working on school reform efforts that include all students?

Guiding Questions for Site Visits*

The following questions are organized into four categories, generally representing concerns and issues from four perspectives: students, teachers, administrators, and community members (including parents). Before a site visit, each team member can be assigned to observe from one of these four perspectives. It can be very productive when the assigned perspective is different from a person’s usual role at his or her home school (e.g., for a general educator to take the student’s perspective, for an administrator to take the teacher’s perspective.)

The questions are designed to:

• help site visitors identify good school practices that work for all students,
• foster communication,exploration, and create a common way to organize observations,
• focus the visit so that it is useful, efficient, and productive,
• create a common purpose, and
• help make sense of what visitors see.

How the Student Experiences School

High standards for all students

Does the school believe that all students can achieve high standards — both academically and socially? How are these beliefs demonstrated? How are students expected to demonstrate the standards? How do the administrators, teachers, and family members communicate the value of excellence and the belief that all students can continually learn?

An emphasis on thinking skills

• How does what the students learn reflect the purpose and goals of the school?
• How does the design of what the school teaches (curriculum) support all students in reading, writing, speaking, listening, math, technology, creative thinking,critical thinking, and problem solving?
• How do the instructional activities help students achieve high performance standards?
• How do IEPs show a commitment to high standards for students with disabilities?

• How often are students provided feedback with how they are doing?
• Who provides the feedback?
• Are students encouraged to evaluate their own performance?
• How are families provided with feedback on their son or daughter’s performance?
• What kinds of tests and other evaluation processes are used and what do they measure?
• How are tests and other evaluations modified so that all students can participate?
• How are student accomplishments spotlighted and celebrated?

• Is there agreement among teachers, administrators, and students on basic rules of conduct?
• How many rules are students expected to follow?
• How are the rules stated?
• Are there other aspects of the school that contribute to a sense of order? If so, what are they?
• How does the schedule promote learning?
• Is the school flexible with space and time? How?

• How does the school ensure a safe environment for learning?
• How are alternatives to violence taught?
• Does the staff model tolerance and respect?
• Are students being taught to respect diversity and difference?
• How are students being taught to view situations from different perspectives?

• How are teachers modifying and accommodating a wide variety of student work?
• How are students helped to develop friendships and positive relationships?
• How are support and related services given to students with IEPs?
• Do all students at the school receive a diploma after graduation?
• How are students with IEPs graded?

Teacher skills and beliefs

• Do teachers believe they can teach all students?
• Are individual learning styles and needs taken into account?
• How do teachers use content and skills learning to facilitate both academic and socialization goals?
• How well do teachers know their subject area?
• How well do teachers know their students?

• How do the teachers instruct?
• How do the teachers manage the classroom?
• How do the learning activities take multiple intelligences and cultures into account?
• How are teachers involved in advising and mentoring students in addition to teaching?

• How is common planning time made available to teachers?
• How and when do teachers think about what, why, and how they are teaching?
• What kinds of training and development options do staff have access to and use?
• Do school or staff members participate in a national network concerned with school reform or inclusive schooling?

Shared sense of organizational purpose

• Is there a clear, school-wide vision and set of goals for behavior and achievement?
• Where do you see this?
• How are the school priorities clearly communicated to students, parents, and community members?
• Did you see a shared understanding of the goals among students, staff, administration, and parents?
• How is the school governed?
• Who makes which kinds of decisions?

• Is collaboration in learning among faculty, staff, and students noticeable?
• How do the administrators foster vision building, ongoing improvement and problem-solving?
• How do the teaching staff and the administrators get along?
• Do administrators encourage teachers to try new ways to teach more effectively to a diverse group of students?

• Does administration support ongoing professional growth of staff?
• How does administration encourage productive interactions with district-level programs? With families? With community partners?
• How is success with all students measured?
• How are families involved as full partners in decisions that affect them?

Family and community involvement

• How does the school invite and expect family and community involvement?
• How does the school create regular two-way, meaningful communication with families?
• How are families invited to help their sons and daughters in the learning process?
• How does the school show appreciation of traditions of families from diverse cultures?
• What kind of parent involvement in academics occurs beyond PTO, parents’ night, and extra-curricular activities?
• Are other community organizations engaged in partnership with the school? How?
• How does the school involve community members, local businesses, and human service agencies to help students succeed?
• Does the school have a relationship with colleges or universities?
• Does the school have any agreements with local employers to place students in career jobs during the year, summers, and following graduation?

Site Visit Etiquette

A productive visit to another school takes good planning. It is essential to prearrange the visit well in advance so that meetings with school personnel and families may take place, and classroom visits may be organized. If appropriate, share the "Guiding Questions for Site Visits" to increase the comfort of the school about your visit.

Because site visits are most productive when classes are in session, it is important to be mindful of visitation etiquette.

• If you are visiting classrooms, try to schedule your time to be there at the beginning of the class. It can be disruptive to come in during instruction.
• Schedule meetings with administrators, teachers, students, and staff throughout the day at times convenient to them. Be respectful of everyone’s time during these meetings.
• Before the visit, become thoroughly familiar with the questions you have been assigned to explore.
• During conversation times — such as during breaks, walking in the halls with a student, in meetings with the staff - be ready to ask questions which were not answered during observation sessions. Use these occasions to ask for greater clarification about how the school went about restructuring, including any difficulties encountered and how they were addressed.
• Remember that everything about a school reflects the way it is intentionally or unintentionally "educating" its students. Look at things like the maintenance of the building and grounds, accessibility, menus in the cafeteria, hallway and classroom decor, the presence of parents, lighting, ventilation, noise levels, office placement, ambiance of the teachers’ room, etc.
• Ask first about taking pictures. Cameras can be a distraction, and in some cases, it is against the law to take pictures of students.
• Note-taking can also be a distraction to some students. While in the classroom, it is sometimes easier to observe and then jot down notes after the class has been dismissed.
• Remember you are a guest who has been invited to share in a very complex organizational dynamic. Your very presence changes what normally "happens" — no matter how accustomed the school community is to hosting visitors. As much as possible, be a gracious, appreciative "participant observer." Select your most important questions to raise during the group interviews. Reserve any evaluative comments for the debriefing sessions which follow the site visit.

Although schools may be engaged in various school reform initiatives, many still have a long way to go in including all students in the process. Addressing the unique learning needs of students is critical to making schools better for all. The successful inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms is a good indication that the teaching and learning for all the students is effective. It is important, therefore, for each team member to look at the inclusion of students with disabilities from their assigned perspectives.
 
 

After the Site Visit: Taking What You Learned Home

It is beneficial for the team to have a short meeting at the end of the site visit day to discuss what each person observed. This "first reactions" debriefing helps team members listen to and compare initial reactions.

After the team has returned to its home school, team members should schedule a debriefing meeting to discuss general observations, have a thorough discussion from each of the four perspectives, pull together what they learned, and ask more questions. Questions at this session might include: Did the team observe any practices that would work well at their school? How might they begin to implement these practices at their school? Who needs to be part of their school reform discussions? School staff? PTA? Accountability committee? Community representatives? What other information would they need to collect? What resources would they need, such as training, consultation, release time for more people to visit schools, etc.?
 
 

Some Final Words

Looking around and seeing what other schools are doing is a great way to begin to improve your school. Of course, not everything a team observes at a site will be appropriate for their home school. Sometimes observing what doesn’t seem appropriate helps sharpen the focus of what would work. Articulating what is missing is one step toward making it present.

Finally, individual parents may decide to use this process even if the school does not agree to a team approach. Parents might invite another parent or other interested person to join them. After the visit, sharing what was learned about another school with your own school community can spark interest in the school reform process.
 
 

Endnotes

* For a copy of "Guiding Questions for Site Visits" prepared for the PEER Project by Marilyn Crocker, Barbara Buswell, and Douglas Fisher, contact PEER at 617-236-7210 or PEAK Parent Center at 719-531-9400. The questions are based on the work of Mark Berends and Bruce King from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
 
 

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This publication has been reviewed and approved by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). Funding for this publication was provided by the Office of Special Education Programs, OSERS, U.S. Department of Education, through grant #H029K50208.