Improving schools requires a team effort with active participation and support from all parties including:

• Labor: Teachers, paraprofessionals, administrative and support staff and union leaders
• Management: superintendents, principals, school board members and district support staff constitute management.
• Parents: Parents, guardians and other caretakers
• Community members: Representatives from community-based organizations, social service and neighborhood organizations and associations and other community leaders

The Center for School Improvement encourages all of these groups to work together and commit to the process of improving schools.

Characteristics of effective school improvement teams include:

• A shared mission
• A climate of trust and openness
• Open and honest communication
• Responsibility shared by all
• Diversity and flexibility of members valued as an asset
• Climate of creativity and risk taking
• Ability to evaluate progress
• Members who are interdependent
• Consensual decision making
• Participative leadership

Examples of districts that have formed effective teams that support school improvement:

• ABC Unified School District, California
• Toledo Public Schools, Ohio
• Baltimore City Public School System, Maryland
• Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Florida

Resources on developing effective teams:

• Collective Efficacy
  This PowerPoint presentation summarizes research on district collective efficacy. American Federation of Teachers.
• Center for School Improvement Leadership Institute 
• A Call to Action: Transforming High School for All Youth The National High School Alliance describes a common framework for leaders at all levels of education and in the community to engage many different groups in the work of improving high schools. National High School Alliance (April 2005).