Starting at the Beginning

Wyoming Park High School in Wyoming, MI, is working to improve its instructional and professional development processes to foster student success. Wanting to do more than repeat failed efforts at improvement, the members of the leadership team found the "Breaking Ranks" framework to be the right fit for their needs and approached NASSP for technical assistance. The framework of "Breaking Ranks" focuses on creating a common language about reform and allows school improvement to be driven by needs instead of by a prescriptive approach. As a result, this allows building a positive school culture as part of the practice of implementing strategies to address the literacy concerns as well as to address the instructional improvements necessary for sustained student achievement. This article describes how school leaders identified the problems and developed a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve. (Contains 1 figure.)