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A lighthouse at risk: combating the life-cycle of the innovative high school

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A lighthouse at risk: combating the life-cycle of the innovative high school

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A LIGHTHOUSE AT RISK:
COMBATING THE LIFE-CYCLE OF THE INNOVATIVE HIGH SCHOOL

by

Amy Avina

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

August 2008

Copyright 2008 Amy Avina

ii

DEDICATION

To my father – the original “Dr. Avina” – and to my daughter, Lily

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The completion of this project would not have been possible without the
support of many people. First I would like to acknowledge my USC classmates who
provided laughter, comfort, and encouragement when it seemed that we had all made a
big mistake by entering a doctoral program while working full-time. My deepest
gratitude goes to Dr. Amanda Datnow without whose advice and support I could never
have finished this work. I would also like to thank Dr. Gabriela Mafi and Dr. Kathy
Stowe for their input on this project.
I must also thank the many individuals who trusted me with their stories for
this research. Although I cannot name them publicly, I offer each of them my eternal
gratitude. Their tales are the heart of this paper, and I wish them all the best as they
continue to educate our youth.
I owe a great debt to my friends at Segerstrom High School, particularly to Lyn
Maher, David Casper, Paul Pilon, Katrina Callaway and Stevie Johnsonbaugh. These
loyal friends were so patient with me when I was facing a deadline, taking over my
professional burdens when I needed to write and teasing me so frequently about
earning a pricey degree that I absolutely had to finish the program.
Most importantly, I thank my family. They never once doubted my ability to
earn a doctorate, and this paper is a testimony to their faith in me.

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION................................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS..............................................................................................iii
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................vii
LIST OF FIGURES.....................................................................................................viii
ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................ix
CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

Introduction…………………….........................………..…………..……………. 1
Background of the Problem……………………….………...….………….1
Flagship High Schools…………………………...….……..…….…..…….2
Research Questions……………………………………….....……..……...…….…5
Significance of the Study…………………………………..………..……....…......5

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction………………………………………………...………..………..……7
The Dilemma of California………………………....……..……………….7
Attempts at Innovation…………………………………….......…...…………..…10
The Need for Innovative High Schools …………....………...……...……11
Charter Schools as Innovators……………………………...……….….....13
Change Over Time?: The Life Cycle of High Schools……………..…….....……15
The Effect of Leadership Succession…………………………….….....…17
Professional Learning Communities and Shared Leadership..........…..….20
Potential Pitfalls……………………………………………………….…..….…..23
Resistance and Exhaustion Among Teachers……………..……......…….23
Expanding Enrollment……………………..………………….......…..….26
Sustainability and “Scaling Up”………………… ….......…..….....……..28
The Pressures of Accountability……………………......…..….......……..30
Conclusion……………………………………………………………..…..……..32
Summary……………………………………………………...…….......…….32

v
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

Introduction.............................................................................................................34
Study Design...........................................................................................................35
Sample and Population............................................................................................35
Instrumentation and Data Collection Procedures....................................................38
Data Analysis Procedures.......................................................................................41
Ethical Considerations............................................................................................42
Limitations of the Study..........................................................................................42

CHAPTER FOUR: ANALYSIS OF THE DATA AND INTERPRETATION OF THE
FINDINGS

Introduction.............................................................................................................44
Still Going Strong: Margarita Park Magnet High School.......................................45
The Effect of Leadership Changes..............................................................46
Growing A Student Body At A Careful Pace.............................................47
A Growing Staff, A Changing Staff...........................................................52
Maintaining Achievement Over Time........................................................54
A Lighthouse Quickly Crumbles: The Case of Golden High School.....................56
Early Achievements....................................................................................61
Staff Polarization and Turnover..................................................................62
A Strength Becomes a Weakness: The Technology Wars..........................66
The Revolving Door in the Principal’s Office............................................68
A Brief Period of Stability..........................................................................73
Present Challenges and Future Hopes.........................................................78
The Challenges of Low Student Achievement...........................................81
Combating the Life Cycle: Lesson Learned From Both High Schools..................86
Conclusion..............................................................................................................94

CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY AND IMPLICATION OF THE FINDINGS

Introduction.............................................................................................................99
Research Findings.................................................................................................101
Connections to Prior Research..............................................................................106
Effects of Leadership Succession.............................................................107
Professional Learning Communities and Shared Leadership...................108
Resistance and Exhaustion Among Teachers...........................................108

vi
Expanding Enrollment..............................................................................109
The Pressures of Accountability...............................................................110
Implications for Policy and Practice.....................................................................112
Recommendations for Future Research................................................................118
Conclusion............................................................................................................119

REFERENCES............................................................................................................121

APPENDICES
Appendix A: Interview Protocol for Principals..............................................125
Appendix B: Interview Protocol for Current Teachers ..................................127
Appendix C: Interview Protocol for Former Staff Members .........................129
Appendix D: List of Codes Used in HyperResearch .....................................131

vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. List of Participants..........................................................................................40

Table 2. Demographic Breakdown of Margarita Park
Magnet High School, 1999-2007......................................................................52

Table 3. Academic Performance Index and Statewide Rankings
for Margarita Park Magnet High School...........................................................56

Table 4. Demographic Breakdown of Golden High School,
1999-2007.........................................................................................................82

Table 5. Academic Performance Index and Statewide Rankings for
Golden High School..........................................................................................84

viii
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Academic Performance Index Scores by High School for the
Nueva Laguna Unified School District.............................................................85

Figure 2. Comparison of Academic Performance Index scores for
Margarita Park and Golden High Schools........................................................94

ix
ABSTRACT
As difficult as it is to improve a low-performing high school, it can be just as
challenging to maintain success or make academic gains at a high-performing high
school. The purpose of this study was to determine what predictable factors exist
which can derail the success of a high-performing “lighthouse” high school. Four
research questions guided this study: (1) What forces influence innovative (lighthouse)
high schools to preserve or change their purpose over time? (2) How does the
principal’s leadership and succession of leaders contribute to shifts in the schools? (3)
How do teacher support and turnover contribute to either the continuation or
stagnation of innovation? (4) To what extent can/does the broader context,
specifically district leadership/ policies and state/federal accountability context,
promote sustainability or change?
This case study employed a qualitative research design to allow for an in-depth
examination of the effects leadership, leadership transition, staff support, staff
turnover, and external accountability on two urban California high schools. The two
high schools were formed with the hope of creating a lighthouse school for their
respective school districts. Each school serves a student body in which over eighty
percent of the students are of low socio-economic status and members of an
underperforming minority group. The schools studied were chosen for their similar
initial plans and their diverse outcomes twenty-five years later. A total of nineteen

x
subject were interviewed including present principals, one past principal, one assistant
principal, three counselors, one classified staff member, and eleven teachers.
Five major findings emerged from the study: (1) In order for a high school to
sustain academic achievement, the person in the principal’s office should remain in
this position for at least five years. (2) A charismatic leader is not necessarily the best
leader for a new “lighthouse” high school. (3) Shared leadership bodies are essential to
a successful high school. (4) A student body and a teaching staff should be built
slowly. (5) Schools should use external accountability measures as well as other
factors to help guide instruction rather than view these measures as nuisances.
The overarching result that school districts and principals can anticipate
common obstacles which may impede the long-term success of a lighthouse high
school; therefore they can strategize a successful outcome accordingly. One
suggestion for future research includes examining a group of new and promising high
schools over a period of twenty years while recording the tone of staff, data team, and
administration meetings to determine the quality of communication and its effect on
the school’s academic success. Findings from this study indicate that school districts
should make every effort to keep a successful high school principal in place for at least
five years and plan for that principal’s departure long before it occurs in order to keep
a high-achieving high school on the right path.

1
CHAPTER ONE
Overview of the Study
Introduction
Background of the Problem
With large scale educational reform and increased accountability sweeping
through the nation, school districts are eager to instill strong leaders into failing
institutions with the hopes of turning schools around and helping the district avoid any
entanglements with the state or federal government. Several schools in California’s
Nueva Laguna Unified School District are in Program Improvement status—some
reaching Year Five—and district officials continue to scramble for talented principals
who might be able to steer the sinking ships in the right direction. While it is crucial
for educational leaders to find solutions for troubled schools, it is often more
challenging to improve a high school than it is to turn around an elementary site.
The California High School is a unique beast, one generally reluctant to adapt
to changing circumstances yet faced with countless challenges. As the population of
the state continues to change while the state’s accountability for all students continues
to rise, high schools face tremendous pressure to change the way they do business. Not
only must high schools prove that they are providing effective instruction for their
majority population, they must also provide that same evidence for each of their
significant subgroups. On top of this responsibility which is shared by their elementary
colleagues, high schools must also reach and maintain a high graduation rate while
ensuring that all of their students pass both sections of the California High School Exit

2
Exam. Add to these academic pressures the community and cultural emphasis on high
school athletics along with resistance from teachers unions to any demands outside of
the collective bargaining agreement and it is not surprising to see that it can be
difficult or impossible to find and keep a talented high school principal. One month
before the annual administrative turnover date of March 15, Edjoin (the popular
employment tool for California educators) lists four pages of job openings for high
school principals in California. William Workman High School in the Hacienda-La
Puente Unified School District is searching for its third principal in as many years,
each leaving the troubled site for a more lucrative (and easier) offer elsewhere.
Hargreaves (2005) bemoans this frequent leadership succession and makes a plea for
keeping effective principals at their sites for a minimum of five years, yet many
districts continue to shuffle principals more frequently.
“Flagship” High Schools
Furthermore, while district leaders are quick to focus their energies on high
schools whose API scores are slipping or whose graduation rates are tumbling, these
same leaders often ignore the stagnation which can occur at their flagship school, high
schools which once performed well but which have slowly regressed. A new high
school which opens with a strong staff and solid leadership can not only stagnate but
can also regress over the course of time so that it soon becomes a crisis school or – at
the very least – a mediocre school no longer on the cutting edge of education (Fink,
2000). These “lighthouse” schools open with strong support from the district and
community built on the promise of innovative and successful academic results. The

3
Nueva Laguna Unified School District opened Golden High School in 1981 to great
fanfare: its unique architecture of concrete walls and rooftop parking reflected its
promise to provide students a unique education grounded in technology. Twenty-five
years later, it lags behind all of the district’s other high schools. The district recently
opened Willard High School, originally set to open in September 2005 as the district’s
fifth comprehensive high school but pressured to open as a fundamental school of
choice. Parents demanded a fundamental high school due to their pleasure over the
district’s fundamental elementary and intermediate schools. In Nueva Laguna,
fundamental schools adhere to rigorous and schoolwide discipline process where
students are tracked for each tardy, each missing assignment, and each dress code
violation. Those who are admitted to the school via the lottery system must maintain
satisfactory discipline records or else run the risk of being issued a “non-invite” letter
directing them to enroll at their home school. Each site’s faithfulness to the
fundamental system varies widely, but the perception among community members is
that the district’s “better” and “more affluent” students populate these schools,
creating a White/Bright flight within the boundaries of the city. Willard is
experiencing early success, but it remains to be seen whether or not the school
regresses just as its older colleague did many years ago.
If we can determine how an innovative high school begins to slip from its
promising beginnings and find a pattern within that regression, perhaps other flagship
schools can avoid the descent into mediocrity so that district leaders can focus their
efforts on those schools which are truly failing. Moreover, the innovative climate

4
which helps establish a lighthouse school can spill over into other sites to “foster
cohorts of leaders who gradually carry innovative values, convictions and practices
into other settings” (Fink, 2000, p.30). Since each flagship school is different and is
erected under different circumstances, the challenge is to find what struggles these
institutions have in common in order to diagnose the problem.
Dean Fink (1998) attributes much of this “attrition of change” to a school’s
choice of successor for the initiating principal, a move he considers, “a major factor in
determining whether the school’s innovations survive or disappear” (p. 281). He also
cites teacher exhaustion over exhilaration as another factor in perpetuating the
inevitable “life cycle” of an innovative school. Corbett et Al. (1987) attribute this
possible decline to a staff’s resistance to change which may accompany the change in
leadership. Ideas and traditions considered sacred by the school culture may be
adjusted by a new leader, creating anxiety and resistance among teachers. Fink’s work
with Hargreaves (2000) and others chronicles the Change Over Time study which
examined a thirty-year period at eight high schools in the United States and Canada in
order to define the forces which lead to educational change and pull innovative
schools toward the traditional norm. Hargreaves and Giles (2006) point to
standardized reform as the most influential external agent pulling innovative schools
towards a conventional mediocrity, but also giving new schools hope by explaining
how the development of effective professional learning communities may help hamper
this downward spiral.

5
Research Questions
This qualitative study aimed to identify how innovative high schools shift (or
not) from their progressive/successful beginnings. The overarching research question
is:
What forces influence innovative (lighthouse) high schools to preserve or
change their purpose over time?
a) How does the principal’s leadership and succession of leaders contribute to
shifts in these high schools?
b) How do teacher support and turnover contribute to either the continuation
or stagnation of innovation?
c) To what extent can/does the broader context, specifically district
leadership/policies and state/federal accountability context, promote
sustainability or change?

Significance of the Study
As the assistant principal of a flagship school, it is my hope that the results of
this study will help me guide our school through its early years and set it on a course
for continuous improvement in the decades to come. An examination of the reasons
why lighthouse high schools in Southern California continue to flourish or begin to
decline will help educational leaders predict outcomes based on the early decisions
which are made at new high schools. Two high schools – both created as flagships for
their districts – will be studied to provide a means of comparison.

6
Margarita Park High School, part of the Los Angeles Unified School District,
graduated its first class of 37 students in Compton in 1985. The school serves inner-
city students who have a strong aptitude for science and the desire to pursue a career
in medicine and science. Since its inception, Margarita Park has weathered many
changes in the social and political environment which led to its creation, but the school
is still considered a highly successful urban high school. On the other hand, Golden
High School has seen a considerable regression over the past twenty-five years. Once
considered the magnet school for high-achieving students who were promised a
curriculum rich in cutting-edge technology, Golden is now the lowest-performing high
school in the district. Both Margarita Park and Golden High Schools have faced issues
surrounding leadership succession, changing demographics/enrollment, and state and
district polices.
This study traces common factors within these two schools and attempts to
pinpoint specific challenges which – when dealt with in a particular manner – can lead
to growth rather than regression. If we can identify how great schools sustain
themselves rather than slip, we can ascertain powerful lessons from these
accomplishments. These lessons can be applied not only to start-up high schools but to
other kinds of new and innovative schools such as charters that seek to maintain their
special-ness over time.

7
CHAPTER TWO
Literature Review
A successful flagship high school holds not only great promise for the students
it serves, but it also holds great potential for a larger population of students if its model
and practices can be replicated elsewhere. Unfortunately, it seems as though a new
high school in California loses its academic edge as quickly as it gains its first desktop
etchings or its first crack in the sidewalk. This literature review will describe the
current academic reputation of California’s high schools, search the many attempts at
innovative models designed to overcome stagnation, and explore some of the reasons
why flagship high schools inevitably seem doomed to mediocrity. An examination of
the most significant, long-range study of a high school’s life cycle conducted by the
Spencer Foundation will help illuminate critical points in a school’s lifespan which
tend to contribute to its downfall. In particular, the challenges of leadership
succession, resistance among teachers, enrollment shifts, and accountability pressures
will all be considered as major contributors to changes in the innovative school.
Introduction
The Dilemma of California
California has long been dogged by its reputation as a state which puts students
last. As of 2003, California ranked 48th in the nation in the average number of
students per teacher (Kirst 2003). In the areas of guidance counselors per students,
librarian per student, and students per computer, California ranked dead last (Kirst
2003). Despite the recent financial incentives to promote class size reduction across

8
several grade levels statewide, “California still has the second-highest ratio of students
per teacher of any state, at 20.9 students per teacher. The U.S. average is 16.1” (Sloan
McCombs 2005). While California’s public institutions of higher learning enjoy a
positive reputation throughout the country, California’s high schools students –
especially those from its urban areas – are struggling to graduate let alone gain
admission to the prestigious University of California system. Even the California State
University system is out of reach for most urban high school students. The recent
emphasis on school accountability which began en masse in 1999 with the Public
Schools Accountability Act and evolved into today’s No Child Left Behind legislation
has illuminated the achievement gap in and within California even more prominently.
Anyone can ask for a school’s accountability report card or look up its API and AYP
data on the internet in order to judge the success or failure of a neighborhood school.
Since individual school reform is a slow-moving train, many districts pin their hopes
on the opening of a new flagship school which presumably starts with a clean slate.
While the need for innovative high schools reaches much further than the
boundaries of California, this state faces a number of unusual challenges which often
hinder the success of a traditional comprehensive high school. California’s diverse
ethnic and linguistic population, its high concentration of socioeconomically-
challenged students (especially in urban areas), and its rigorous state content standards
all seem to create a perfect storm of problems for the high school educator (Hanak,
2005). Public high schools in California must ensure that all students pass the
California High School Exit Exam in order to earn a diploma, and each student who

9
fails to meet this measurement creates a black mark against the school which failed to
prepare them (California Department of Education, 2007). In order to meet the
requirements of “Annual Yearly Progress” for the federal government, these schools
must show measurable growth for each of their majority populations as well as those
subgroups whose numbers exceed 100 (CDE, 2007). For a majority of California high
schools, this means that students with special needs and English Learners – both
considered significant subgroups in nearly every urban high school in the state – must
show academic progress through the state’s content standards test. Schools which fail
to show progress are placed into Program Improvement status, and a growing number
of California’s urban high schools are facing these sanctions.
The traditional high school model could be partly to blame. Nearly all of
California’s high schools have a similar structure and similar academic goals.
Comprehensive high schools offer students six or seven classes each day with each
period lasting approximately 50-60 minutes. Each class is run by a separate
practitioner who specializes in the subject, and there is often little communication
among staff members from different departments. Students may be tracked so that
“college-bound” pupils are enrolled in honors and AP courses while “junior college-
bound” students enroll in general education courses. Students with special needs or
failing grades are placed in remedial classes. Teachers focus primarily on whole-group
instruction where they impart information to the passive learner (Elmore, 1987). This
model is highly effective for the motivated student who has strong family support and

10
a strong sense of academic goals. Unfortunately, this model fails nearly every other
student who enters the campus.
Attempts at Innovation
Charter schools have attempted to counteract this trend by establishing high
schools free from many of the bonds upon which the state, districts, and teachers’
unions place on schools. Using alternative methods of instruction, a variety of pace of
the day structures, and specialized services for an underserved population of students,
charter schools (like many private high schools) hope to show improved academic
achievement through an alternative method of education. A similar effect occurs when
a school district opens a brand new high school. As soon as the board of education
announces plans for a new site, the community eagerly awaits the opening of the new
site as it watches each phase of construction take place. With the erection of new walls
comes the emotion of hope: this school will bring hope and energy to its teachers, its
students, and its parents. This school, the community prays, will be different.
Often a flagship or innovative schools becomes labeled as such because of the
population it draws. Magnet schools often attract the “bright white flight” from within
and outside of a school district. The Orange County High School for the Arts limits
enrollment to its charter by audition only. Nueva Laguna Unified’s Willard High
School opened as a fundamental school of choice, limiting enrollment to a small
neighborhood population and a limited lottery system. Margarita Park Medical Magnet
developed rigorous criteria for its students including a minimum 2.5 grade point

11
average in math and science classes with an overall grade point average of 3.0 in their
general education classes.
A new high school also attracts teachers who intrinsically seek change.
Disappointed with the downward spiral of their current high schools, teachers within
the district may sign transfer paperwork in the hopes that the school will avoid the
perils of their former homes. Some teachers may long for a new building with clean
carpets and desks; others may long for the opportunity to start afresh.
The Need for Innovative High Schools
A school district creates an innovative high school in hopes that its
underserved student body will suddenly and dramatically show great results.
Educators long to find the magic pill – the cutting-edge pedagogy or revolutionary
curriculum which will transform their pumpkin district into a Cinderella carriage. It is
undeniable that the need for improved student achievement is both important and
immediate. Every year that passes in which a student continues to struggle
academically is a year lost. With California’s great diversity comes the reality that
many of these lost students are socio-economically disadvantaged, linguistically-
challenged, and/or minorities. Those high schools which are successful in serving
these populations are few and far between.
A California educator would be hard-pressed to argue that high schools
statewide are having difficulty meeting the needs of our students. The challenge is
even greater for schools serving students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, a
label which largely applies to African American and Latino students in Southern

12
California. While 78 percent of students nationwide earn high school diplomas, only
51 percent of African American students and 52 percent of Latino students earn their
degrees (Greene & Forster, 2004). Administrators often peruse their latest issue of
Leadership magazine looking for examples of schools that are succeeding and the
lessons which can be derived from these sites. Recently the magazine presented an
article with the headline, “Six Schools Which Make A Difference” (Cudeiro, et. al.
2005). The authors boast about the successes of six Southern California schools and
the common practices used by the principals. While the suggestions are useful for any
administrator, the six schools highlighted are all elementary schools. In fact, it is rare
for a California high school to enjoy the same positive publicity largely due to the fact
that high school improvement is a slow train ride (Department of Education, 2006). A
few high schools in Southern California have been lauded for their achievements,
namely Garden Grove’s Bolsa Grande High School and Los Angeles’s Cleveland
High School (Oberman, 2005). Despite the diverse ethnic and linguistic populations of
these two high schools as well as their relatively high rates of poverty among students,
both high schools have made significant gains in academic achievement. Bolsa Grande
teachers regularly develop and implement a common assessment to students so that
they can compare student achievement using precise item analysis. That type of
collaboration is vital to the school’s success (Oberman, 2005, p. 25). Cleveland’s staff
focuses on the team mentality: teachers attend workshops in groups so that the
information can immediately be discussed and prepared for implementation. Teachers
at Cleveland High School also develop and implement curricula as a team or

13
professional learning community (p. 21), thus the initiative for change and ongoing
improvement lies within the staff rather than strictly with the school’s administration.
Charter Schools as Innovators
Clearly these urban high schools and others like them are making gains
through the use of professional learning communities, regular data-analysis, and
shared leadership. Unfortunately, these schools are the exception to the rule. A large
number of comprehensive high schools are not serving their students well, and for this
reason the number of charter schools state- and nationwide has exploded over the past
decade (Fink, 2000). Charter schools enjoy the public financing of their
comprehensive counterparts without many of the constraints which tie the hands of
public high school educators (United States Department of Education, 2006). The
Preuss School in San Diego was founded by the Provost and several faculty members
of the University of California, San Diego. Preuss serves students admitted by lottery
who are eligible for the free and reduced lunch program and whose parents did not
graduate from a four-year college (U.S. Department of Education, 2006, p. 51). Ninety
percent of the seniors in the class of 2004 were admitted to four year universities while
ten percent were admitted to community colleges, all with the promise of admission to
UCSD if they did well (p. 54). Local business leaders and the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation helped fund the Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High (HTH) in San
Diego. High Tech High is specifically designed to provide a rigorous, technology-
based high school education in order to produce qualified people to meet the demand
of the many high tech jobs in the San Diego area (Brand, 2005). Students are accepted

14

through a lottery process which ensures equal opportunity for all applicants, and
teachers do not have tenure (p. 19). All students, regardless of their ethnic background,
socioeconomic status or learning disabilities, are expected to exceed the University of
California’s A-G requirements. Judith Brand cites the school’s innovative features as
“performance based assessment, daily shared planning time for staff, state of the art
technical facilities for project-based learning, internships for all students, and close
links to the high tech workplace” (p. 19). As a result, all of the school’s graduates have
gone to college, and the school currently enjoys a “10” ranking among similar
schools
1
.
While Pruess and High Tech High are to be commended for their innovation
and success, the schools enjoy several advantages that a public high school cannot.
Pruess is largely supported by UCSD as well as corporate donors. The funds for High
Tech High are generated by sizable grants allow the school to provide access to
technology which most high school students will never see. While the lottery process
allows a variety of students the opportunity to attend the school, teachers at High Tech
High teach no more than 50 students (p. 19). The staff at Pruess is supplemented by
over 100 volunteers from UCSD (p. 53). A typical high school teacher in California
has contact with close to 200 students each day. California school districts regularly
find themselves engaged in budget reduction cycles, especially with the declining
enrollment facing many school districts.

1
Though the report cited lists High Tech High as a “10” school, it slipped to the 9
th
decile in 2006.

15
It would seem that the creation of these cutting-edge charter high schools
makes a significant impact on students which could be replicated in part by a public
school district through the creation of an innovative, flagship high school. While a
public high school would be hard-pressed to compete with the low class sizes of High
Tech High or the ability to enroll by lottery (and thereby limit your student population
to a manageable and predictable size), the creation of a new high school brings with
the opportunity to become the flagship of the district. Whether or not these early
successes can be replicated over time is another story entirely.
Change Over Time?: The Life-Cycle of High Schools
The opening of a flagship high school brings great promise and often high
levels of achievement. From these early successes comes a system-wide confidence
that the school will continue to thrive because its foundation is so strong.
Unfortunately, this assumption is more likely to be disproved as time passes. Today’s
failing high schools were once themselves new and promising. Even those high
schools which opened with a new angle or a fresh approach to education have found
themselves regressing toward mediocrity within ten years.
The problem even transgresses national boundaries. A long-range study from
the Spencer Foundation examined the sustainability of educational change at eight
high schools in the United States and Canada. The Change Over Time? study
examined both the progress and regression taking place at these high schools over a
period of thirty years (Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006). Educational reform and the
sustainability of its effects seems to last far longer at the elementary level, so an in-

16
depth study of the high school challenges was conducted instead. Canada and the
United States each initiated an emphasis on educational reform and school
accountability during this period (1970-1999), but the effect on each country’s high
schools differed little despite the unique sensibilities of each educational policy. The
authors found that effective leadership and ongoing support can promote reform, but
“few innovations reach the institutionalization stage when they become a routine and
effortless part of most teachers’ practice” (p. 5).
Fink (1998) focused his lens on one of these Canadian schools – Lord Byron
High School in Ontario – of which he was a staff member. Fink found that:
Most newly constructed schools begin life as places of hope,
enthusiasm, energy, and creativity. A significant number of new
schools, however, evolve, indeed regress, into conventional schools.
This loss of initial momentum and innovative direction experienced by
many newly established schools occurs because of what this study
describes as the attrition of change. (p. 269)

Lord Byron was itself an innovative, flagship school in the 1970s but became a
conventional site by the mid-1990s. Fink traces his link to Lord Byron as one of the
original staff members, site administrator, and superintendent watching the high
school experience life cycle changes. Both Fink’s study and the larger Change Over
Time? study found identifiable pathways on which these high schools lost their
innovative edge and become ordinary. Indeed Fink believes that “[t]here are early
indications of the attrition of change which, if understood and anticipated, could
provide points of action and intervention to prevent further erosion of the school’s
vision” (p.269).

17
While all schools experience “implementation dips” as new skills are practiced
and perfected (Fullan, 2001, p. 40), the Change Over Time? study found that five
major forces potentially contribute to a school’s long-term downfall or – at the very
least – create tremendous obstacles for the lighthouse high school. Few would argue
that the “waves of policy reform” (Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006, p. 13) which swoop
from the top down help a school maintain its success. Canada, like the United States,
has experienced its share of education reforms which attempt to create positive
support but inevitably become barriers to efficient academic achievement. The
cumulative effect of numerous reforms creates hostility and ultimately apathy among
veteran teachers who see the ever-changing reforms “not only as cumulative but also
as contradictory” (p. 18). Changing student demographics create an ongoing
challenge, and this is one area which rings true especially for the California educator.
The changing relationship among schools – fueled in California by the public’s
awareness of school API scores – labels some high schools as “failures” at even the
most minute drop in test scores. A collective weariness among teachers resulting from
external changes and career fatigue brings regression into the classroom. Most
significantly, changes in leadership and the system of leadership succession can
potentially undo a high school’s early successes (Giles & Hargreaves, 2006).
The Effect of Leadership Succession
“Few things succeed less than leadership succession.” –Andy Hargreaves (2005)
The principal of a new high school carries a tremendous amount of
responsibility, but often the leader hired for this position outshines any successors

18
which are doomed to follow both in leadership style and general personality. When
one community’s single high school was deemed overcrowded and a second high
school was formed, the founding principal was described as the conductor or
cheerleader, involved in each phase of the school’s development and bringing a
vitality and unique energy to the process (Stine, 2000). Upon the opening of Ontario’s
Lord Byron High School, the principal gave much of the decision-making authority to
the cabinet and staff but was still described as “creative and charismatic” (Fink, 1998).
The principal of Ontario’s Talisman Park High School possessed “undeniable
charisma” and “was a hard act to follow” (Fink & Brayman, 2006, p. 69). At a rural
California high school, a community revolted when its popular high school principal
was transferred ostensibly for failing to handle a student’s accusation against a teacher
properly. The principal received so much support largely because he was the original
principal of the site, an involved, dynamic leader (Takahashi, 1998). Even when a
dynamic principal creates early success at a high school, the district (in a frenzied
delight over the discovery of an effective administrator) will likely promote the
principal and thereby remove him/her from immediate impact on the high school.
More often than not, “charismatic leaders are followed by less-dynamic successors
who cannot maintain the momentum of improvement” (Hargreaves & Fink, 2004, p.
10).
While a charismatic leader can charm a staff or make them feel as if the
winning coach has arrived to carry them onto victory, “[c]harismatic leaders
inadvertently often do more harm than good because, at best, they provide episodic

19
improvement followed by frustrated or despondent dependency” (Fullan, 2001, p. 1).
These principals appear to be larger-than-life role models who can never be emulated
by another individual.
Effective leadership extends beyond the principal’s office, and because the
departure of a principal is intrinsically anxiety-ridden, a high school principal must
always plan for his departure by grooming potential successors and instilling a sense
of leadership among key staff members. The Change Over Time? study showed that
planned continuity occurs when the selection of a successor is designed to sustain and
grow the goals of the predecessor (Hargreaves, 2005). Three of the high schools in the
study planned and executed smooth transitions: One principal in the study began
working with his future successor (the assistant principal) immediately upon taking the
position (p. 164). In other cases, succession was meant to promote discontinuity in a
school where a new leader needed to chart a new course for improvement. A common
problem facing each of the schools – and many California high schools – is the rush to
move principals from one site to another in order fix the second school or the rush to
promote a successful principal to the district level in hopes of finding the same success
on a larger scale (p. 171). As a result of seeing so many principals come and go, the
staff begins to tune out any new ideas brought in by a principal, choosing instead to
“wait it out” because the leader will soon be gone anyway. Andy Hargreaves (2005)
asserts that leadership must be disbursed among professional learning communities so
that the work does not leave with the leader, but he fervently advocates for keeping a
principal at the same site for a minimum of five years (p. 172) so as to promote as

20
much continuity as possible. In an earlier article by Hargreaves and Fink (2004), the
authors were able to synthesize the Change Over Time? findings regarding leadership
succession by outlining the seven principals of sustainable leadership. Ideally though
uncommonly, succession must be planned for the moment a leader assume office.
While the preparation of a successor is ideal, the more important step is the
distribution of leadership through the school’s professional community (p. 6),
although the authors point out that the already-proven stars on a staff can be quickly
burned out. The effective leader develops the leadership potential within every
member of the staff, in the long run becoming “the leader of leaders” (Fullan, 2001, p.
11). Here is where the use of effective professional learning communities becomes
essential.
Professional Learning Communities and Shared Leadership
One way in which schools are avoiding the fallout which occurs when a new
principal takes office is by implementing and nurturing leadership schoolwide through
Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Rick DuFour (2003) – long considered
the PLC expert – defines a professional learning community as a group within an
organization who have a shared sense of the mission in front of them and a shared
vision of what they must do to achieve the mission. Leadership – rather than echoing
the top-down model of yesterday – is now shared (Copland & Boatright, 2004). These
groups then engage in a constant cycle of inquiry whereby data is gathered and
analyzed, strategies are developed to address areas of weakness and then implemented
throughout the PLC, then new data is gathered once more to reflect on the

21
effectiveness of those strategies and the need for further refinement and improvement.
For DuFour, it is the ongoing process of reflection and refinement which promotes
effectiveness of the PLC. A supporting learning community can also help frustrated
teachers determine how to support their students rather than blame them for not
meeting standards (Darling-Hammond & Ifill-Lynch, 2006). José Lavié (2006)
advocates the use of PLCs in order prevent solitude, alienation and diversity of beliefs,
but he also notes that “[t]here is an explicit interest in redefining power relationships
in the school community, according to which leadership is understood as a shared
process” (p. 787).
The creation of professional learning communities alone does not ensure
effective shared leadership if the principal or superintendent does not ensure that
everyone has the knowledge to make healthy decisions for the school (DuFour, 2003).
The principal or superintendent who oversees a school’s PLCs has a duty to train and
coach teachers so that they master the necessary skills to achieve the goals set forth
(DuFour, 1999). The leader must also allow for some autonomy within these groups
while clearly identifying particular guidelines which are mandatory. For example, a
suburban superintendent allowed each school to form PLCs in whatever way they
chose to do so but “insisted that every staff member would be on a team and that the
focus of the team would be student learning” (DuFour, 2003, p. 3).
Much of the research on professional learning communities is related to the
research on the ever-changing role of the principal. Where once the high school
principal hoped to be a benevolent dictator, the definition of an effective high school

22
principal today is often linked to that leader’s ability to build consensus. Early in
DuFour’s career as a principal, he learned the value of this collaboration (1999):
The identification of the shared vision and values changed my relationship
with the faculty. Rather than emphasizing regulations and procedures to
control the work of teachers, I could rely on shared vision and values to
provide a sense of direction. Gradually, I came to regard the identification,
promotion, and protection of shared vision and values as one of a principal’s
most important responsibilities. (p. 2)

In light of the effect of changing leadership on the innovative high school, the use of
PLCs and shared vision/decision-making in a high school buffers some of the negative
effects of losing a even a charismatic leader. The hard work which takes place in a
high school’s PLCs which centers on student achievement is and constantly re-
examined and refined will outlast a change in administration so long as the incoming
leaders allow this work to take place and help to foster its continued renewal.
The creation and use of effective PLCs can help alleviate anxiety when
changes in leadership are made. If the school’s philosophies are integrated into the
fabric of the school through shared leadership and decision-making on a staff level,
the changing of the guard in the principal’s office will not carry the same potentially-
negative impact. While shared leadership is an effective buffer against regression
between principals, there is always the danger of teacher burnout with the addition of
this responsibility. There is also the potential for resistance among teachers who are
accustomed to acting as independent practitioners.

23
Potential Pitfalls
Resistance & Exhaustion Among Teachers
While much of the literature centered on the Change Over Time? study focuses
on the role of the principal and district office in sustaining success or contributing to
accelerated deterioration, it is important to examine the role of teachers as well. One
of the most difficult perceived obstacles to school reform of any kind is teacher
resistance, especially from veteran teachers in their mid- to late-careers. Teachers
experience nostalgia, an emotional as well as cognitive attachment to the past which
may appear better than it actually was compared to their current situation (Goodson,
et. al, 2006). Throughout the Change Over Time? study, veteran teachers universally
expressed a longing for an earlier time when their careers, their sense of self-worth,
and their feeling of empowerment were strong. Many teachers expressed political
nostalgia which focused on an easier time in education before mandated reforms and
accountability became commonplace (p. 45). The teachers surveyed for this study
expressed a view heard in California’s classrooms today. Whereas teachers felt
empowered by the instructional and curricular flexibility they once enjoyed, they now
feel as if they are instructors of test-taking rather than of their own subjects.
Teachers also felt nostalgic for a time in their careers in which they perceived
themselves as independent contractors. They were experts in their field, developing
their own pacing calendars long before the term was widely-used and rarely seeing an
administrator walk through their classrooms. As one teacher at Sheldon High School
(one of the subjects in the Change Over Time? study) put it, “We decided on what a

24
student should know to get a diploma (Goodson, 2006, p. 50). Today’s classroom
doors are open not only to the practice of “learning walks” or “walk’abouts” from
administrators, but they are also open to parents who wish to sit in class with their
children as well as to department chairs and other teachers. The secrets are no longer
hidden. Teachers who practice ineffective instructional practices, use outdated
materials, or lack quality classroom management skills now run the risk of being
“exposed” to their colleagues.
There is also research to suggest that teachers themselves experience seasons
in their career, their own individual life cycles (Sikes, 1985). A thirty-three year old
teacher told a researcher, “[The students] stay young, they stay young and they stay
young, and you get older and older and older, it’s the same old pattern. That’s what I
dislike about teaching.” (p. 27). Traditionally white-collar jobs create levels of status
which an employee may attain over a period of time. While there are administrative
options and the rare opportunity to become department chair, a veteran teacher will
likely notice that his or her new college – fresh out of college – enjoys a similar status.
The veteran teacher may earn a higher salary, but the new hire may possess a Master’s
Degree which makes his salary competitive. The veteran teacher does not earn a larger
classroom – the public sector equivalent of the corner office. He enjoys none of the
privileges and carries none of the responsibilities of an upwardly-mobile employee in
the private sector. His role is stagnant.
At the same time, many veteran teachers long for the days when their students
were – in their memories – well-behaved, hard-working, and literate. The changing

25
demographics of a typical high school have shifted drastically, not only in California
but everywhere. Teachers interviewed for the Change Over Time? study remarked that
their students became less successful and less responsive as the decades marched on.
The largely homogeneous classrooms of middle-class white students were now filled
with students from single-parent families who had limited English skills, “poor work
habits,” and “short-term concentration” (Goodson, 2006, p. 52), all of which make
their jobs harder.
For veteran teachers who have not undergone regular and meaningful
professional growth opportunities to deal with their changing classroom
demographics, the gap which separates them from younger, newer teachers seems
enormous. Teacher preparation programs are now addressing the need for innovative
teaching in order to serve today’s diverse student body. An effective high school
teacher of the 1970s was able to maintain a quiet classroom with all students seated
and facing forward as he pontificated about the day’s subject matter – much as the
teacher’s own college professors taught him. Many of today’s teacher training
programs reflect the changing demands of a new high school teacher. Teacher trainees
at the University of California at Irvine are encouraged to enroll in the university’s
fifteen-month program which leads to the completion of a single subject credential as
well as a Master of Arts in Teaching (UCI). While students complete the program,
they also complete the state-required CLAD (Cross-Cultural Language and Academic
Development) credential which entitles them to teach classes of English learners.
Students are also encouraged early in the program to begin thinking about National

26
Certification. Moreover, UCI students and others throughout the state are being trained
in research-based instructional strategies which allow them to avoid lecture-based
delivery and increase the level of student engagement.
Expanding Enrollment
It is not always a weary veteran staff who contributes to the regression of a
flagship school. When these lighthouse high schools experience early success, the
public’s reaction (and very often the school district’s) is to find salvation at this school
and rush to enroll students Smith, et al., 1987). The panic to hire a large number of
additional teachers to serve the booming student population undermines the previously
careful selection of staff members who demonstrated a commitment to the school’s
vision (Fink, 2000). A surge in enrollment can mean desperate scrambles for properly
credentialed teachers in math and science where there is already a shortage. For the
high school administrator, finding a teacher with the specific Earth Science and
Chemistry credential may overshadow the need to find a teacher who emulates the
school’s values.
Furthermore smaller high schools have been found to produce better academic
results, allow more opportunities for their students to be involved in extra-curricular
activities, and fostered more personalization than their larger counterparts (Stevenson,
2006). Even when controlled for socioeconomic status, the data suggests that
California high schools with a student population exceeding 1000 students results in
statistically poorer performances in reading, though the data suggests no such
correlation exists in math or writing (Stevenson, 2006). High schools with a student

27
body between 600 and 900 tended to produce better results overall though the high
operating cost of a high school relative to the academic progress gained by school size
reduction is debatable.
Conversely, Copland and Boatright (2004) found that transforming large
comprehensive high schools into smaller schools does significantly benefit students,
and they cite the significant number of grants given by the U.S. Department of
Education and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as partial proof that this
metamorphosis is investment-worthy. In fact, the authors claim that the ideal student
population for each “school within a school” ranges from 200 to 400 students (p. 763).
For the teachers and administrators, “they have a real opportunity to invest personal
time in each learner and to seek meaningful interactions with them outside the
classroom” (p. 765).
If the lessons of New York City prove transferable, then a failing urban high
school can become high achieving by splitting into smaller models. The Coalition
Campus Schools Project created small schools out of two failing (and large)
comprehensive high schools in the early 1990s. While not a panacea, the creation of
smaller schools proved successful in long-range studies and showed students making
significant gains in reading and writing (Darling-Hammond, et. al., 2002).
Leaders of innovative high schools whose populations shift or grow
dramatically but do not have the luxury of splitting into smaller units are therefore
faced with the challenge of “making a big school ‘small’” (Barker, 2006). Shorecrest
High School in Shoreline, Washington, faced a student body of 1,500 and widespread

28
belief that large high schools could not provide the personalization of a smaller school
without breaking into academies. The school decided to target class size reduction in
all nonhonors 9
th
and 10
th
grade English classes to 20:1. The school also started a
special emphasis on the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program
and formed partnerships with families.
No matter what strategies an innovative high school may use to traverse the
potential pitfalls of changing leadership, staff fatigue, and over-enrollment, the work is
never done. A lighthouse school is never given the luxury to rest on its laurels. Rather
the responsibility of the lighthouse school is to sustain its early achievement over the
long haul so that it may serve as a model for other high schools. Even then, this
continuous work of sustaining achievement may not translate into academic success
beyond the school’s walls.
Sustainability and “Scaling Up”
A lighthouse high school that shows early success can only really have long-
term effects on the education of students if its achievement is sustainable and its
practices can be implemented in some form in other, less successful high schools.
Unfortunately, both sustainability and successful “scaling up” are tremendously
challenging and rarely triumphant. “Initiating change is easy, but sustaining the
initiative through the inevitable tough times demands unfailing persistence” (DuFour,
2000, p. 5), a persistence which often diminishes when leadership and staff turnover
begins.

29
Fullan (2006) reminds us that “sustainability requires continuous
improvement, adaptation and collective problem-solving in the face of complex
challenges that keep arising” (p. 119). This cycle of inquiry means that the task is on-
going, often requiring great energy, but that it also requires the ingenuity and
persistence to move schools beyond the occasional plateau. Fullan also notes that the
overuse and underuse of energy can endanger a school’s sustainability. To help sustain
achievement, Fullan advocates the use of “positive collaborative cultures” in order
help push the school forward with higher goals and avoid the cultivation of a negative
culture (p. 121).
Lighthouse schools are created and monitored in the hopes that their success
can be replicated elsewhere. Each successful innovative high school is examined by
district administrators (and often by state officials or private groups) to determine
what policies, values, and practices can be extracted and planted elsewhere. This
“scaling up” of a successful design is possible (Littky, 2004, pp. 286-287). Rhode
Island’s Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center (“The Met”) began as a
state school acting autonomously from any school district, and its success led the
founders to create twelve more Met-inspired schools with the help of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation. When the Detroit-based Met proved successful,
Michigan’s Governor wanted to create more Met-schools statewide (p. 287). This
process seems easy: just copy the original model and plant it elsewhere for the same
results.

30
Unfortunately, such “scaling up” of lighthouse schools is not always that
simple. According to the Change Over Time? study, one of the reasons why Lord
Byron High School began to falter can be traced to the region’s rapid determination to
replicate it: “[W]hen educational authorities establish ‘model’ schools to ‘scale up’
larger systems, they inevitably undermine the sustainability of the school’s innovative
ethos” (Fink, 2000, p. 47). And while the staff of a lighthouse school may feel
tremendous pressure to make significant achievements, the effect on the outside staff –
those hard-working teachers and administrators in the district who are not part of the
lighthouse site – may grow resentful of their neighboring high school, especially when
district officials attempt to implement similar strategies and practices districtwide.
The Pressures of Accountability
In order to keep its place on top and continue to be a model for the school
district, the lighthouse high school has to continue its academic success in many
measurable forms. The school’s graduation rate must continually improve. The school
must ensure that its students pass the California High School Exit Examination on the
very first try and provide remediation for those students who fail. Finally, the school
must continue to show improved Academic Performance Index (API) scores each
year, a feat which becomes more difficult as the scores get higher and the staff
becomes complacent or defensive.
Although school administrators regularly feel the pressure to produce
improved test scores each year, high school teachers often feel resentment towards any
perceived emphasis on testing over long-term learning. “Just before the tests were

31
given, teachers were directed to suspend the regular curriculum to drill students on old
versions [of the test] or on specially prepared, test-preparation booklets. These
teachers referred to the drill activity as ‘teaching to the test’” (Corbett et al., 1987, p.
51). A national survey of teachers in 2003 found that teachers felt a good deal of
pressure to raise test scores at the sacrifice of any content not related to the test
(Pedula, et. al. 2003). These results were similar for teachers in high-stakes testing
states as well as lower-stake states although the source of pressure varied: teachers in
high-stakes testing states felt more pressure from their superintendent while teachers
in lower-stake areas felt pressure from parents (p. 2).
Although the countless education reform efforts tied to high-stakes testing
have intended to raise student achievement and improve public schools, the pressure
of state and federal accountability also begins to tear away at a high school’s ability to
stay innovative (Gustafson, 2002). Pacing calendars, mastery of content standards, and
test performance begin to drain the energy from a lighthouse school’s original mission
and vision (Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006). Rather than motivating teachers to help
students reach higher levels of performance, the intense focus on testing has had a
negative effect on teacher morale and contributed to increased stress for teachers
(Pedula, 2003).
The pressures of district, state, and federal accountability put innovative
schools into an interesting bind. On the one hand, the expectation that a flagship high
school will continue to shine as measured by the Academic Performance Index and the
Annual Yearly Progress yardsticks may distract from the very innovations that made

32
the school unique. On the other hand, these model schools often stand out to the public
because their performance in these areas surpasses that of their neighbors. Flagship
high schools may simultaneous resent and need the pressures of external
accountability.
Conclusion
Summary
Much of the literature focusing on the life cycle of a flagship high school stems
from studies taking place in Canada and in the New York and New England regions of
the United States. The framework developed in the Change Over Time? study –
particularly in the areas of leadership succession, staff resistance, and accountability –
will help shape the lens through which two California high schools may be more
closely examined. This study’s specific focus will be on the growth, stagnation, or
regression of two urban high schools and the extent to which the three areas above
have contributed to each school’s attempt to remain innovative.
The literature indicates that leadership succession is the most specific and
visible contributor to school change. Whether or not a flagship high school has
entrenched its policies and procedures into the larger staff through the use of
professional learning communities may lessen the effect of a new principal on the
school’s mission. At the same time, there is a great deal of pressure on the staff to
keep standards high and to make gains in student achievement each year, a pressure
which could ultimately lead to burnout and resistance throughout the faculty. The
underlying pressures of accountability and the more-immediate pressure from the

33
school district and the public to keep an innovative high school running at full-speed
often leads to weariness, resentment, and stagnation, all contributing to the notion that
flagship schools are destined to follow the same life cycle path toward mediocrity.
Hopefully this study will help California urban educators predict and avoid the paths
which lead away from innovation and student success.

34
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter describes the design, sample, instrumentation, data collection, and
data analysis of the proposed study. To recap, the purpose of the study is to
investigate the reasons why flagship high schools experience a decline in academic
achievement over time as well as the factors which allow some schools to retain and
expand upon their early successes. In order to examine both types of models, two
southern California high schools were examined in order to address the following
research questions:
1. What effect do the principal’s leadership and the subsequent succession of
leaders have on these schools?
2. How do teacher support and turnover contribute to either the continuation or
stagnation of innovation?
3. To what extent can/does the broader context, specifically district
leadership/policies and state/federal accountability context, promote
sustainability or change?
The method of this study consists of a comparative, qualitative case study of
two high schools. I examined the current practices of each high school and
investigated the history of each school through the lens of the principal as well as of
the veteran staff members. The case study method is particularly appropriate for this
in-depth study conducted over a brief period of time (Merriam, 1998). Since my goal
was to study the stagnation, growth, or decline from the point of view of the people in

35
each school community, a case study approach allowed me to examine these trends
from the perspective of the participants themselves (Merriam, 1998). Although I have
some research guidelines into this phenomenon based on the current literature, I
learned much more about the life cycle of the southern California high school through
inductive-analysis (insight, discovery, and interpretation) (Patton, 2002).
Study Design
In order to examine more fully the change over time experienced by two urban
high schools, I employed a qualitative research design. This approach allowed me to
probe into the histories of each school’s leadership succession, the success or
difficulty of transition periods between principals, and the hiring and retention of key
personnel, all in the context of state and federal accountability measures. Within this
design, I was able to conduct interviews with present and past leaders as well as those
teachers who had a long history with the high schools and who had witnessed
significant changes over a period of time.
Sample and Population
This study was conducted using a qualitative case study research design at two
Southern California urban high schools: Margarita Park Medical Magnet High School
in the East Clark Unified School District and Golden High School in the Nueva
Laguna Unified School District. This purposeful sampling (Patton, 2002) allowed me
to explore the ways in which Margarita Park has avoided the pitfalls of the high school
life cycle while analyzing the troubled twenty-five year period which Golden High
School has endured. The selection of these two schools represents “intensity

36
sampling,” a strategy which allows the researcher to examine cases which “manifest
the phenomenon intensely, but not extremely” (Patton, 2002, p. 243).
Margarita Park Medical Magnet – located in Margarita Park, CA but part of
East Clark Unified School District – serves a population of 1600 students with the
goal of exposing all students to an experienced-based education in hospitals, research
laboratories, and community clinic settings. Students are admitted to the school based
upon specific selection criteria. Drawing from a community which is largely African-
American with a significant subgroup of Latinos, the students at Margarita Park must
have earned a minimum 2.5 grade point average with a “C” or better in math and
science. They must have a clean discipline record and a specific recommendation from
their science teacher in order to enroll. In order to graduate from Margarita Park,
students must earn a minimum of 230 credits which include four years of math and
four years of science. Last year, Margarita Park posted an Academic Performance
Index (API) score of 689, placing it in the fifth decile statewide and the ninth decile
among similar schools (California Department of Education, 2006). Margarita Park’s
API scores have been fairly consistent over the past five years.
Golden High School lies on the east side of Nueva Laguna and serves 2500
students. As with Nueva Laguna’s school district, this high school’s population is
overwhelmingly Hispanic with a small, numerically insignificant number of Asian-
American students but represents 14 different languages. Students in the high school’s
neighborhood are admitted to Golden without further admission requirements. The
school was originally erected over thirty years ago in a part of Nueva Laguna which

37
was largely White. In what could be called a case of foreshadowing, the district
purchased the land for the school by condemning the housing which laid on the
property. Since the acreage of the property was relatively small for a high school, the
building was constructed as a large concrete structure with rooftop parking. In order to
lure the middle class community into attending a high school resembling a prison,
Nueva Laguna trustees made Golden the district’s flagship school for technology-
based learning. After only five years in existence, Golden was recognized by the
California Department of Education as a California Distinguished School.
Unfortunately, the cutting-edge curriculum could not withstand the drain imposed
upon it by the rapid succession of principals and the ever-disgruntled staff. By 2006,
Golden High School posted an API score of 578, placing it in the first decile of
California high schools and the fourth decline among similar schools (California
Department of Education, 2006). Golden’s API score solidifies its place as a 5
th
year
Program Improvement (P.I.) school, and it has just received a grant to help reverse its
academic fortunes by reducing class sizes in all core subjects to 25:1 over the next five
years.
Each of these two sites opened with great promise. Margarita Park was
designed to be a lighthouse school within LAUSD, offering a rigorous curriculum in
math and science to Compton’s and Los Angeles’s underserved minority students.
Golden was designed to be the lighthouse of SAUSD, showcasing a curriculum which
employed cutting-edge technology to put Nueva Laguna’s youth on the fast-track to
high tech careers. While both schools have faced changes and challenges since their

38
groundbreakings, one has managed to sustain its achievement while the other has
suffered a number of significant setbacks. By illuminating the ways in which
Margarita Park has navigated its way through leadership and staff changes and
contrasting its pathway with that of Golden’s, an important series of lessons will
emerge which can guide other educational leaders who hope to sustain academic
achievement at their high schools.
I have no personal connections to either Margarita Park or to LAUSD, so I
contacted Margarita Park’s current principal through our common USC connection.
By contrast, I am currently employed by the Nueva Laguna Unified School District,
the home of Golden High School. I have only been with the district for two years, and
I have never worked at Golden nor have I ever worked with the members of the
current administration. Several veteran teachers and one veteran counselor who had
been with Golden since its opening are currently employed at my site, and they all
indicated to me that they would be more than willing to share their perspectives with
me despite the fact that I am their current administrator.
In order to conduct this level of research at two public high schools, I obtained
approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Southern
California. Additionally, I sought approval from each school’s district office as well as
from each school’s current site administrator.
Instrumentation and Data Collection Procedures
As discussed in Chapter Two, the life cycle of a high school is primarily
influenced by its leadership succession and attempts at shared leadership, resistance

39
and exhaustion among staff members, and the pressures of outside accountability. To
this end, it was essential to conduct interviews with current and past principals, with
several teachers across subject areas who have been working at each school since the
foundation, and with teachers and other staff members or administrators who have
since left the school. With these criteria in mind, I interviewed the current principals at
each site as well as one former principal from Golden. I also conducted interviews
with at least three teachers per site who joined the staff within the first three years of
the schools’ openings. The teachers interviewed represented both department leaders
and members so that the data was not skewed from the viewpoint of the site-based
decision making process. I also conducted interviews with at least three former staff
members from Golden High School since my early investigation indicated that these
staff members helped open Golden, led it through the WASC process, and departed
within the last two years because they felt they could not overcome the increasing
problems at the high school. This sampling resulted in maximum variation (Patton,
2002) since I studied one high school that is able sustain achievement and one that is
struggling to raise achievement levels.
Each interview lasted approximately 45 minutes depending on the extent to
which the subject has been involved in the operation of the school. Time and location
were determined by the interviewees and took place primarily on-site. The number of
participants and the variation of job responsibilities provided data which may be used
for triangulation (Patton, 2002). In addition, I observed at least one leadership meeting

40
at each site: one which was focused on the school’s upcoming WASC visit and the
other involving only the immediate administration.
I developed a different instrument for each group of participants (see
Appendices): one for the current principals, one for past principals, one for current
teachers and staff members, and one for former staff members.
Table I

List of Participants

NAME

SCHOOL AFFILIATION

JOB TITLE

David Anderson

Golden High School, Nueva Laguna USD

Assistant Principal, 3 years
Elizabeth Vasquez Golden High School Clerical Staff, 5 years
Lydia Cruz Golden High School Counselor, 5 years
Frederick Snyder Golden High School Principal, 3 years
Kathleen Watts Golden High School Principal, 1 year
Steve Lawrence Golden High School Teacher, 10 years
Amy Shaw Golden High School Teacher, 9 years
Darren Hudson Golden High School Teacher, 12 years
Melinda Salazar Golden High School Teacher, 8 years
Elaine Mulroney Golden High School Teacher, 10 years
John Iribarren Golden High School Teacher, 3 years
Laura Lugbill Golden High School Teacher, 3 years
Greg O’Meara Golden High School Counselor, 8 years
Brian Rydell Margarita Park Magnet High School, East
Carter USD
Teacher, 20+ years
Jeff Draper Margarita Park Magnet High School Teacher, 10 years
Michelle Mateo Margarita Park Magnet High School Teacher, 12 years
Peggy Randall Margarita Park Magnet High School Staff Member, 8 years
Chris Alexander Margarita Park Magnet High School Teacher, 20+ years
Roberta Berry Margarita Park Magnet High School Principal, 3 years

41
Additionally, I gathered relevant documents from each site which included but were
not limited to:
¾ AYP and API data from each school as available for the duration of the
school’s existence to trace longitudinal academic achievement
¾ Demographic information about each school’s student population
(recorded over the past 10 years)
¾ WASC (Western Accreditation of Schools and Colleges) self-study
reports
These documents revealed several key factors about each school. By tracking each
school’s academic achievement using state API scores as well as federal AYP
information, we can paint an overall picture of the school’s success through the state
and federal lenses by which the public judges neighborhood sites. Finally, each
school’s WASC report(s) and years of accreditation granted will tell us to what extent
the entire staff is involved in the school’s mission and how that mission is being
received by the accrediting agency.
Data Analysis Procedures
Patton (2002) explains the process of data analysis this way: “Data
interpretation and analysis involve making sense out of what people have said, looking
for patterns, putting together what is said in one place with what is said in another
place, and integrating what different people have said” (p. 380). As I analyzed relevant
documents, interviewed key personnel, and made some preliminary observations, I

42
began to sort this data in order to develop a narrative based on the research questions
in Chapter One.
From this point, I analyzed and coded the information by theme in order to
look for patterns and alternative perspectives on the same events (Merriam, 1998).
Since my interview questions were each linked directly to my research questions, my
analysis of each person’s perspective within each research question helped me to
determine how the changes at each school were created and accepted by the leadership
and staff. In addition, I used HyperResearch software to help me code and sort the
data. The codes I used are listed in Appendix A. I then used the coded data to help
guide the text written about each school and to determine similarities and differences
between the two sites.
I also used graphs and charts to present the numerical data found within the
relevant documents listed above in order to make this information more accessible.
Ethical Considerations
I strictly followed the Institutional Review Board’s (IRB) guidelines and
procedures in order to maintain the highest ethical standards. I insured that all
participants remain anonymous and that all data collected will remain confidential. It
used pseudonyms in the place of real names since the people I seek to interview still
hold jobs either at the site being studied or elsewhere within the same school district.
Limitations of the Study
I am currently an assistant principal in the Nueva Laguna Unified School
District. Although I am not and have never been affiliated with Golden High School

43
nor have I been in the district for very long, I knew that I must not let my bias as an
administrator cloud my conclusions about the data. The three former staff members
from Golden High School are all currently at my own school, but upon hearing about
my proposed dissertation topic, all three told me that they would be more than willing
to sit down with me to discuss their perspectives from their extended time at Golden
High School.
As I was limited to a brief period of time (approximately three months), I had
to limit the number of interviews and on-site observations I was able to conduct. Since
these two sites offer unique situations and histories, the information I gather might not
necessary translate to other high schools.

44
CHAPTER FOUR
Analysis of the Data and Interpretation of the Findings
Introduction
Prior research has shown that new high schools which begin with great
promise and high expectations inevitably begin a cycle of decline which leads to the
endgame of mediocrity. The primary factors which lead to this downward spiral are
linked to the research questions which will be addressed in this chapter:
What forces influence innovative (lighthouse) high schools to preserve or
change their purpose over time?
a) How does the principal’s leadership and succession of leaders
contribute to shifts in these high schools?
b) How do teacher support and turnover contribute to either the
continuation or stagnation of innovation?
c) To what extent can/does the broader context, specifically district
leadership/policies and state/federal accountability context, promote
sustainability or change?
This chapter explores these areas at two distinctly different urban high school in
California. Both schools hoped to offer a specialized curriculum for urban students in
Southern California. Both schools opened with the intent of fulfilling that mission and
becoming a “flagship” high school for their districts, a school to which others would
look for guidance. Both schools, opening within years of one another, were intended

45
to be the lighthouses for other urban schools, illuminating successful pathways to
academic achievement.
The first high school in this study is a story of success. Margarita Park Magnet
High School resides in Southern California’s East Carter Unified School District, a
longtime struggling urban school district. For the residents of East Carter, Margarita
Park represents hope – the hope that students of any race, color, or economic
background can achieve admission to a university and pursue the career of their
choice. The second high school – Golden High School in the Nueva Laguna Unified
School District – represents something very different to its community. What was
once promised to be the lighthouse of the district is now a black mark, a place of
defeat and anger.
Each school’s journey will be described separately so that the full context of
the data can be understood within the context of the school district. A brief summary
comparison of the two schools appears at the conclusion of this chapter.

Still Going Strong: Margarita Park Magnet High School
Located in California’s East Carter Unified School District, Margarita Park
Magnet High School opened it doors in 1982 as a magnet school for students with an
interest in the medical and science fields. Drawing from a population of predominantly
under-represented minority neighborhoods, Margarita Park also allows students from
throughout its troubled school district to enroll in its program should they meet the
school’s criteria. The district’s busing system transports the majority of Margarita
Park’s student body to school each day.

46
In its early days, Margarita Park operated with 30 neighborhood students who
gained admission by passing a mathematics test. “Basically we held a barbecue,” notes
teacher Michelle Mateo, “and told the community and students about our vision for
the school. That’s how we got students.” The school later moved to another temporary
location before coming home to its beautiful new facility in 1999.
The school admits students based on a points system based on five criteria:
previous enrollment in a magnet program; participation on a waiting list;
representative of a Hispanic, Black, Asian, or other non-Anglo population; resident of
an overcrowded school as deemed by the school district; status as the sibling of a
current student. The school has never required that an applicant be tested as a gifted
student, but a 2.5 grade point average is required to participate in the program.
As a result of its connection to the medical profession and its hands-on career
experience, Margarita Park requires students to follow a strict dress code. Students
may only wear polo or oxford shirts in the school colors, and shirts must be tucked in
at all times. Pants, shorts, or skirts must be black or uniform plaid. The school does
not allow its students to wear jeans. Shoe color, belt style, hair-color, jewelry, and hats
are all strictly limited or forbidden.
The Effect of Leadership Changes
Dr. Gene Williams served as the principal of Margarita Park from 1983 until
2000. Dr. Williams came to Margarita Park as a former biology teacher who grew up
under Jim Crow laws. As a result, Dr. Williams was passionate about his commitment
to underrepresented minority youth and their access to the worlds of math and science.

47
Under Williams’s leadership, the students at Margarita Park began to experience the
medical profession in a hands-on setting. Students spent a significant amount of time
observing and working with doctors in a hospital setting as well as conducting
research at university laboratories. This practice of working in the medical profession
while earning a high school diploma lives today in Margarita Park’s culture and
requirements.
Teacher Jeff Draper describes the successful tenure of Dr. Williams as “the
result of high expectations for students and staff, and a lot of hard work.” Draper, who
was hired by Williams, describes him as a man who was visible, who worked harder
than any staff member, and who inspired students with his gentle discipline. Staff
members, students, and parents held Williams in high esteem. To this day, his name
still arises in meetings when the topic turns to school vision and “doing what’s best for
kids.”
Margarita Park’s current principal is Roberta Berry, a relatively-young
administrator in her first principal position. Like Dr. Williams, Berry came from a
strong academic background. She was a math major pursuing an engineering degree
who became sidetracked into education. Ms. Berry did not enjoy the luxury of a
transition period when she took over from Gene Williams: Dr. Williams passed away
unexpectedly, and Ms. Berry took over immediately. Although Berry had been an
administrator at the school since 1998, her abrupt move to the principal’s office in
2001 took her by surprise. It also caught the school’s community off-guard, many of
whom were unsure about Berry’s ability to take over the school from a popular

48
principal when she had only three years of administrative experience as the school’s
assistant principal. Knowing that she faced a difficult situation, Berry kept her focus
on retaining the school’s vision. Since Berry had an active hand in hiring over one-half
of the school’s faculty, she relied on the loyalties of these teachers to help keep the
entire staff united. “I knew there were a couple of players amongst the teachers who
were not happy with my [promotion], so I was more gentle, more tactful with them.”
Berry knew that the teachers who had been with the school since its opening took each
and every change personally, so she navigated her way to small changes only with
their consent.
One area in which Berry is making changes is in data analysis. Although the
school does not yet use a software program like Data Director to disaggregate
assessment results, Berry has started to bring data into department and staff meetings
to initiate conversations about student achievement. Berry acknowledges that the
process of data analysis is not entirely threatening since the school is sustaining high
levels of achievement, “but it makes a difference when [a teacher is] looking at his or
her own results against those of other teachers.”
In addition to her introduction to data analysis, Berry has also implemented
student support systems. Berry noted that her students are not usually college-bound
thinkers when they enter Margarita Park, so she aligns new students with seniors and
juniors who can become their mentors. She chooses students who are not necessarily
the student body presidents looks instead for “natural leaders,” students who possess a

49
certain confidence and leadership capability. In this way, Berry believes that she helps
the mentor as well as the mentee.
Principal Berry also “adopts” a group of students for herself so that she can
keep a special eye out for them and track their achievement. “I don’t know if people
realize this,” said Berry, “but we are only 25% female. Of those girls, nearly one-half
of them have been behavior problems. They need a little extra attention, and I think it
helps that I am a strong, educated woman who looks like them.”
Berry also implemented a summer program for new students which focuses on
math and science but is really intended to bridge the social gap that students face when
they enter high school, especially since many students find themselves not knowing
many others when they come from different feeder schools.
Growing A Student Body At A Careful Pace
The typical new high school opens with 9
th
and 10
th
grade students, then builds
its population each year. By the time the first graduating class leaves a school, it
usually begins to stabilize its student body. Margarita Park built its program
differently. The school opened without freshmen, taking transfers from other high
schools to make up its student body. By the time the school’s final home was built in
1999, it had outgrown two different campuses. Berry remembers “we had to house our
tenth graders on the old campus because we couldn’t fit everyone into this facility.”
The school had grown from a beginning number of 30 to a much-larger population of
200 before the new campus was built. By the time the students moved in, Margarita
Park had 700 students. Shortly after the new campus was finished, Margarita Park

50
added its first ninth grade class. “We went from 700 to 1,100 to 1,400, to 1,700
students overnight. Well, it was slower than that but it seemed like we were growing
so quickly,” notes Berry.
The slow pace at which Margarita Park built its student body had a two-fold
effect. Berry credits the slow growth of the school to the creation of a family
atmosphere among the Margarita Park staff. The teachers credit the pacing of the
school’s growth as the primary reason why Margarita Park is able to avoid the “Black
vs. Brown” wars that plague many inner-city campuses. Brian Rydell, one of
Margarita Park’s original staff members, describes the difference between his students
and those on other campuses:
I’ve seen the other high schools in our district. I have friends who teach
at high school in southern California. When you mix African American
students with Hispanic and Latino students, you get friction. It can be
ugly. We have been able to avoid the race wars because the focus here is
on family and on success. Every student can succeed. I don’t care if
you’re black, brown, or polka-dotted. Everyone is held to the same rules,
and everyone can achieve greatness.

Another teacher with professional connections in nearby Long Beach Unified finds the
lack of racial at Margarita Park to be “our most important victory. The fact that you
can have students of all races not only achieve academically but coexist peacefully is a
tribute to the men for whom our school was named,” noted teacher Michelle Mateo.
As the student population has increased, Margarita Park has managed to keep the
peace between students of different backgrounds and cultures.
Berry remembered the many vocal community members who did not want
their small school to grow. “Many [staff members and parents] wanted us to stay

51
small, to remain around 700,” she recalled. Doubts about Berry’s ability to keep the
Margarita Park vision strong coincided with doubts about a growing student body,
which many stakeholders felt was a threat to the family atmosphere which had been
nurtured over the past decade.
An analysis of the school’s demographics over the past nine years reflects this
deliberate growth pattern. Despite Margarita Park’s sizable growth since 1999, its
student profile has remained relatively unchanged. Two-thirds of the student body is
African-American while the remaining third is predominantly Hispanic, proportions
which have not changed significantly since its opening. The percentage of students
who qualify for free or reduced lunches also remains high, right around 75%. All three
subgroups are statistically significant in the state’s calculation of the high school’s
Academic Performance Index (API).

52
Table 2

Demographic Breakdown of Margarita Park Magnet High School, 1999-2007

Ethnicity

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

African-American not
Hispanic

338

578

760

890

892

870

831

802

731
American Indian or
Alaska Native
1 3 6 5 5 3 2 1 2
Asian 24 26 23 5 5 7 6 7 6
Filipino 7 8 5 1 1 2 5 2 3
Hispanic or Latino 109 187 248 337 337 358 369 354 407
Pacific Islander 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
White not Hispanic 2 6 9 3 3 8 6 6 5
Socioeconomically
Disadvantaged
241 343 393 779 781 828 823 789 815
English Learners 228 189 233
Students with Disabilities 34 20 24
Note. Totals over 100 are considered statistically significant and therefore counted towards AYP.

A Growing Staff, A Changing Staff
As the student body began to increase in size, the number of staff members
grew to accommodate it. Berry was heavily involved in the hiring of newer teachers,
and that involvement greatly helped her build a loyal base among the faculty. When
asked about the greatest overall difference between the teachers who started Margarita
Park and those who are relatively new, Berry smiled and said:
They are a lot more aggressive and they demand more —and I do not
think it has to do with our particular school. For example, I will tell a
newer teacher, “I want you to teach this book,” and the teacher will ask
me, “Why do you use this particular book?” I never questioned anything
when I started teaching. [New teachers] are a lot more knowledgeable
about standards, about strategies. They just know so much and don’t
have any hesitation about questioning what we do. I like that.

53
For Berry, teacher matriculation is a constant challenge, particular in the math
and science departments. Although Margarita Park is a magnet school which
emphasizes these two subjects, Berry loses teachers to graduate and medical school, a
move for which she cannot blame them. “This year, I probably have eight new math
teachers, which is scary,” notes Berry. In addition to the challenge of working with
new teachers, Berry has found that many of her applicants for math positions are
former engineers, in her opinion a profession incompatible with teaching. “I am not
going to hire any more engineers,” she exclaimed, “because they are focused on taking
care of the problem, not tending to the student.” With a long sigh, Berry adds that the
retention of a solid staff who know how to teach students while still being able to
understand the upper-division concepts is her symbolic cross to bear.
Luckily, Berry has a secret weapon for attracting high quality teachers: alumni.
Today Margarita Park has three teachers on its staff who are graduates of the high
school, a proud accomplishment for its founding members. Berry tells at every
graduation, “If you have a great work ethic and are willing to work, I will find you a
job.” For Berry and for other staff members, each successful graduate of Margarita
Park is a potential teacher who can come back and give to the program that nurtured
and supported them. Staff member Peggy Randall is proud to say that one of her
favorite students is now a member of the staff: “[The teacher] went from being a little
lost, a little unsure of herself, to becoming an outstanding scholar. Now she’s an
outstanding teacher, and she’s ours.” In Randall’s estimation, the return of alumni to
the Margarita Park staff is the most visible proof that the school is successful.

54
“Children who otherwise may not have even graduated from high school let alone
attend a four-year college are now models for others in the classroom. Our teachers are
our evidence of success.”
Principal Berry also supports her current teachers through regular observations
and coaching. “My observations might only be five minutes long. I just might want to
see how a teacher starts off the class,” she recalled. By choosing a specific part of the
class period to observe, Berry gets the information she wants about a specific teaching
strategy so that she can dialogue with a teacher about ways to improve these smaller
points in a lesson. This strategy allows her to have frequent, less formal conversations
with teachers which build trust between teachers and administrators. It also allows her
to spend more time focusing on her new teachers, most of whom rely on her bell-to-
bell observations and feedback to improve their teaching.
Maintaining Achievement Over Time
Although Margarita Park is considered a magnet school, Berry will admit that
it does not have a campus filled with Ivy League-bound children. In fact, Berry
consistently makes an effort to emphasize to her staff that it is their job to make them
college-competitive, that “they don’t come to us that way.” The teachers at Margarita
Park enjoy the bright, motivated students who fill Advanced Placement classes, but
Berry asks each teacher, “What will you do for the students at the bottom? What about
the ones who are average?” Teacher Chris Alexander commented that this type of
focus on the atypical magnet student is what sets Margarita Park apart from other
high-performing high schools. “We work with the children we have,” he said. “We

55
don’t make them test to get in and only take the cream of the crop.” In fact, nearly
every member of Margarita Park’s staff told a story about a student who might not
have been accepted to another magnet high school had testing been required but who
succeeded at Margarita Park by learning how to become a scholar.
Principal Berry “adopts” students who are frequent visitors to the discipline
office and tries to build a relationship which will pull them out of their behavior cycles
and allows them to focus on academics. While only 25 percent of Margarita Park’s
students are female, girls accounted for 50 percent of all student discipline issues. In
order to pull the focus away from poor behavioral choices, Berry worked with school
counselors and psychologists to give these students more responsibility. From these
efforts arose a mentoring program which Berry uses to pair seniors with freshmen.
“These are not the class presidents who are my mentors,” noted Berry. “These are
students who had trouble themselves and are now helping others take a look at the big
picture.” One result of mentoring younger students is that the seniors see their own
grades improve. The freshmen in the program also find their skills rising and go on to
become mentors themselves. All of the students talk about their current proficiency
levels using the same “data talk” used by the teachers. Berry hears students tell one
another, “Last year I was basic, but this year I am basically improving, going for
proficient!” This has a cultural effect on the campus which helps Margarita Park
improve and maintain its Academic Performance Index (API) each year:

56
Table 3

Academic Performance Index and Statewide Rankings for Margarita Park Magnet
High School

Year

# Tested

API

Statewide Rank

Similar Schools Rank

Difference

Met Growth
Target?

1999

482

630

6

10

N/A

N/A
2000 809 601 4 10 -29 No
2001 1053 619 5 10 18 Yes
2002 1243 643 6 10 24 Yes
2003 1245 681 6 10 38 Yes
2004 1248 708 7 10 27 Yes
2005 1219 711 6 10 3 No
2006 1172 689 5 9 -21 No
2007 1155 707 N/A N/A 18 Yes

Now celebrating its 25
th
Anniversary, Margarita Park is preparing for its upcoming
accreditation visit from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Principal
Berry is looking forward to yet another successful report from the visiting committee.
A Lighthouse Quickly Crumbles: The Case of Golden High School
The research described in Chapter 2 seems to indicate that the major factors
which contribute to the struggles and potential downhill slides experienced by many
promising new high schools can be linked to four major areas: changes in leadership,
staff turnover, enrollment shifts, and the pressures of outside accountability. Margarita
Park Magnet has been able to avoid many of the pitfalls of the typically-declining

57
innovative high school by starting small, growing a steady population of students who
are held to a high standard of expectations, carefully selecting successive principals,
and maintaining a singular vision for student success. On the other hand, most of the
turmoil which has caused the Nueva Laguna Unified School District’s Golden High
School to deteriorate over the past twenty years can be linked primarily to leadership
issues: abrupt leadership changes, lack of administrative transition, and a consistent
tendency to shift blame.
John Iribarren helped to open Golden High School in 1989. He was serving as
an intermediate school social studies teacher and athletic coach when he was recruited
to join Golden’s staff. Iribarren was never interviewed for his position; he was simply
offered a job at what was to be known as the district’s cutting-edge technology high
school. Iribarren describes what the morale of the staff was like when he joined
Golden:
The staff came in with an incredible amount of energy because
we all felt special—we had been selected to open up this new
facility. So we all felt like we were hand picked, which we
were. We came in with this terrific amount of energy and there
was a sense of focus and unity to do something new, different,
and innovative.

Iribarren noted that most of the teachers who were hand-picked by the school’s new
principal came not only for the glamour of a technological high school but because
they were also eager to escape what they perceived as failing battles at their own sites.
That Golden was going to be the lighthouse of the district simply added to the appeal
of joining the inaugural staff.

58
Steve Lawrence also joined the staff during its first year hoping to forge new
traditions and to reinvent the image of the urban high school. He felt a sense of pride
being hand-picked to join the faculty, and he was certain that this “all-star team” of
outstanding teachers would create a top-notch school. Lawrence felt “like I was going
to the big-leagues. This was going to be the ultimate teaching job, and I was picked to
be part of it.” As a physical education teacher and basketball coach, Lawrence had the
opportunity to create his own department policies and begin a quality athletic program.
Like Iribarren, Lawrence was certain that the technological emphasis of the high
school coupled with its high-powered opening staff meant that Golden High School
would quickly become the flagship of the district.
Unfortunately, several early signs indicated that hopes of these new teachers
would not necessarily materialize. According to Lawrence, no formal staff meetings
were held prior to the opening of Golden High School. While the teachers understood
that they were would be at the forefront of technology, there were no plans to provide
formal training or professional development for their upcoming journey. The teachers
were eager to be on a campus where everyone would take attendance online – a true
innovation for 1989 – and send emails instead of memos schoolwide. Unfortunately,
none of the district or school leaders thought to provide any support for the expensive
equipment they purchased. Iribarren described the irony this way:
There was a lot of money for equipment, but there was no
roadmap. To give you an idea, we all got our computers—I
remember they released these Macs ... to us and we took them
home, this is at the beginning of summer. There was no
inservice, there was no training, there was no nothing. I can
remember breaking out the instruction booklet to learn how to

59
use it and that was it. When we got to school in fall, we had
about 40, 50 people and maybe 10 who knew how to do
anything or something with it. A group of us, myself included,
crashed an ROP computer class that begun first week of school,
and we sat in on evening for a couple of weeks just to learn the
basics, because ... there was no training.

This lack of support reflected an early problem schoolwide. While the new staff of
superstar teachers was enthusiastic about opening a new and innovative high school,
they grew quickly frustrated at the lack of vision and follow-through on all levels.
Even the facility itself was a disappointment to many teachers. Built on a small
lot, Golden’s architecture of high cement walls and a rooftop parking area earned it the
nickname: “The Prison.” The school had no football stadium and no swimming pool.
The gymnasium’s acoustics were poor, and puddles formed on the basketball court the
first time it rained, much to the distress of Lawrence. The school did not even have a
track until the second year. Most of the building’s classrooms seemed far too small to
be functional, a problem which became worse as class sizes increased. Narrow
hallways meant that students and teachers would be crammed into a small space
during passing periods. Most discouraging of all, the school’s center courtyard – the
hub of all student activity during lunches – resembled a prison yard surrounded by tall
cement walls. Iribarren thought, “All this space needs are guards with rifles on top.”
Besides the frustration the staff felt at the lack of professional development to
create a high-tech high school, Iribarren noted that the teachers slowly began to see a
change in the rules once they signed on to join the staff. The new staff was originally
told that Golden High School would be a magnet school for the Nueva Laguna Unified
School District, drawing top students from throughout the district and potentially from

60
the county. Instead, Golden opened as a neighborhood school. The staff was also
promised that they would not be offering any separate courses for ELD (English
Language Development) students. “We are not having ELD. We are not having
ELD...we kept hearing that over and over all summer,” said Lawrence. “Sure enough,
once the school year started, we had ELD students in our classrooms.” Classrooms
suited for 25 students were crammed with 35-40. All ELD students were
mainstreamed, and core teachers found themselves wondering how to teach students
who knew little or no English. While many of the teachers were bilingual including
Iribarren, the staff discovered that nearly one-half of their ELD students were of Asian
heritage and spoke a multitude of different languages and dialects. Lawrence noted
that the staff was taken aback by the challenge of Golden’s significant EL population.
In the middle of these events stood founding principal John Tilley, a
charismatic leader in the best and worst senses of the term. Iribarren characterized
Tilley as a showman, and several other original staff members described Tilley as
more of a politician than an effective leader. Golden High School began to garner
much publicity for the district based upon what Iribarren calls the “dog and pony
shows” put on by Tilley to make the school look innovative. Media outlets and
visiting school districts would come to Golden to see what cutting-edge work was
being produced, and Tilley would target specific classrooms or computer labs which
would showcase the school’s good work. Unfortunately, the majority of the staff felt
that these visits failed to show visitors the true picture of the school. When Tilley
ended up on the cover of a local magazine trumpeting his outstanding school, senior

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staff members had had enough. They had been handpicked by Tilley to open Golden,
but they felt they had also been lied to about what Golden High School was going to
be.
Early Achievements
The early years at Golden were not completely without some achievements.
Teachers and staff members at Golden were the first in the district to use email to
communicate within the school, an exciting form of communication in this early stage
of its development. The school set up a Humanities department comprised of the
English and Social Studies classes. These courses formed a mini-block schedule so
that one teacher could provide the day’s lecture to a large audience of students before
breaking up into smaller classrooms for discussion. As one of the designated lecturers,
Iribarren felt that Golden was offering a college-type atmosphere for students, and the
department enjoyed this type of structure. Unfortunately, these early feelings of
success soon deteriorated. The demands of the master schedule could not
accommodate the Humanities block beyond the first year. The school’s email system –
once so exciting and innovative – quickly became used as a weapon between teachers.
Many current staff members are surprised to learn that Golden was once
named a California Distinguished School. Within its first five years of existence,
Golden went through the application process and earned this honor by emphasizing its
great promise, according to O’Meara.
One small learning community which seemed to receive special attention and
support was the eBusiness community, a group of teachers and students focusing on

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technology and business. The program proved to be highly successful for its students,
and the teachers leading the community were able to attain a significant amount of
grant money to fund their program. The de facto leader of the group referred to
himself as one of the Founding Fathers of Golden, a label which some people took as
humorous but which annoyed and sometimes enraged his colleagues. Whether the
self-applied label was “Founding Fathers” or “The Originals,” the split among faculty
members continued to create feelings of jealousy, alienation, and disappointment.
Staff Polarization and Turnover
Soon after Golden’s second year in existence, its founding principal Tilley was
promoted a position at the district office. The superintendent brought in Michael
Morris, the former principal of a successful intermediate school in the district. Morris
came on board just as frustration among the teachers began to rise. Compounding the
low morale among staff members was the addition of teachers who were not hired by
the principal but placed by the district after a series of “bumps” occurred when
teachers from other schools had been displaced. Golden was now getting teachers who
did not choose to be there for the original vision and purpose but who were placed on
the staff involuntarily. The addition of bungalow classrooms contributed to the sterile
environment of the plant. Many of the original teachers began to retreat into their
classrooms, according to Iribarren.
By the third year, what I saw was that a fortress mentality kicked in....
People began doing whatever is comfortable, they just wanted to
survive. ‘So I lock my door, put paper on my window and if you want to
come in and observe me, call me from the office.’ There was some
reason for that dissatisfaction, part of this was the disillusionment that
had set in from the lack of leadership—that was what I felt. “This is

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such a sham; we’ve got these people coming in, we’re pretending to be a
technology school”...and by the third year, people began doing what was
comfortable for them.

According to Lawrence, the teachers who had been with Golden since its opening
were determined to keep forging ahead, hoping to keep on the cutting edge of
education despite their dissatisfaction with reality of their situation. Block scheduling,
academic academies, and team-teaching were just some of the bandwagons upon
which this segment of teaching staff leaped in order to remain – as they hoped – the
lighthouse of the district.
The staff wanted to be an innovative, cutting-edge high school so teachers
started to look for ways to be different. John Iribarren described this “desperate need”
for innovation:
Basically, what we wanted to do at Golden was to be different. That
was the problem—we wanted to be different but we did not exactly
know how. It is kind of like a standing in front of the mirror and
saying, ‘I want to change my look, but I am not sure what I want to do.
Do I want to dye my hair? Do I want colored contact lenses? We just
wanted to be different. Obviously, as when you are standing in front of
that mirror, you wanted to improve your appearance. What we wanted
to do was to improve the quality of education but we were just not sure
how to do it. As a result, we did a lot of spinning the wheels. We kept
trying. But it was all hit or miss.

As the original staff members began to band together, those teachers who were
new to Golden found themselves being alienated simply because they were not part of
the school’s opening. Kathleen Watts, Golden’s current principal, was hired by
Michael Morris as a science teacher but quickly found herself on the outside of the
school’s inner circle. She describes the feeling she had as the original faculty
trumpeted their status: “The teachers were working together – it was really something

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– but ...they were still the Originals. I am telling you, I walked in and they said, ‘We
are The Originals’. In one [staff] meeting they were throwing candy only to the
Originals, and I am sitting there with candy flying over my head.” Watts quickly
realized that she would have to excel at her job in order to earn any respect from “The
Originals,” and she did just that. While Watts spent a good deal of energy trying to
impress the original staff members in order to earn some credibility, she also spent the
next few years learning what kind of leader she wanted to be – and what kind of a
leader she definitely did not want to be.
Darren Hudson faced a similar separation when he started teaching at Golden.
He had heard the terms, “Founding Fathers” and “Original Stakeholders” not just
amongst the general conversations in the hallway but as official labels used in staff
meetings. “Every meeting,” said Hudson, “included some deference to ‘The
Originals.’ We had to put [decisions] on hold to see what they thought first. It really
rubbed me the wrong way.”
Not only did Golden’s newer teachers feel alienated by the Originals for not
being part of the opening staff, they felt a lack of support from their colleagues. When
Laura Lugbill came to Golden fresh out of a high-quality teacher credentialing
program, she was eager to seek the advice of the teachers in her department. Instead
she found herself largely ignored and openly mocked. “I asked one of my colleagues
for help understanding a calculation in the textbook, and he said, ‘You’re a college
girl. Figure it out.’” Even Lugbill’s department chair brushed off her attempts to seek
advice about classroom management. She laughed at Lugbill’s naiveté and made it

65
clear that it “was not her job to teach Intro to Teaching 101.” After three years of
teaching, Lugbill felt isolated and alone. She eventually took a teaching position in a
neighboring school district. Today, Lugbill looks back on her time at Golden with a
different perspective:
I’m now at a school where everyone helps one another. We don’t hire
fresh meat and leave them to suffer in silence. What disappoints me the
most about [those years at Golden] is that the kids are the ones who
suffered. I was a mediocre teacher trying to keep my head above water,
and I received no support from [teachers or administrators].

Lugbill came to Golden High School hoping to join the pride of the district.
When she left, she remembered not the technology, the special programs, or the
facility but instead the disappointment of working among independent
contractors and pre-established cliques.
Elaine Mulroney quickly discovered the downside of being new to Golden
when she joined the staff the same year. She voluntarily transferred to Golden from
one of the district’s intermediate schools because she heard about Golden’s integrated
curriculum and their work in divisions rather than in department areas. It sounded as if
the people at Golden were engaged in innovative approaches to high school education,
and she was eager to join the staff. “[The school] had great buzz. They seemed very
forward thinking, very into teaching the student. This kind of move away from ‘I am
the expert in that field of study and I am going to present the information to you’ was
refreshing. They examined the whole student.”
Soon Mulroney realized that Golden was not just committed to an innovative
approach to teaching, but that the staff wanted to jump on anything remotely new and

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different, desperately trying to stay ahead of the curve. Teachers would be teaching in
teams to present an integrated curriculum one year, then seek to form course-alike
teams where the goal was to maintain rigid consistency in common lesson planning
the following year. Since there was little or no paid common planning time for
teachers, the integrity of each program fell apart quickly. To make matters worse, the
teachers who started a new program became a new clique. Mulroney noted that she
would not have wanted to be the principal of Golden because “there were a lot of very
large egos in the room, and every little group has a pet project, and those projects were
not at all aligned with one another. People would get very angry if they sensed that
one group was being granted special favors over their own.” Iribarren added that “a lot
of money was being thrown at programs run by a few teachers serving only a few
students,” an inequity not lost on the already-divided staff.
Such sentiments were echoed by Greg O’Meara, a former counselor at Golden;
by Lydia Cruz, a former department chair and program specialist; and by Elizabeth
Vasquez, a member of Golden’s clerical staff. All three former Centurions told sad
tales about their days at the high school and their eventually decision to leave.
A Strength Becomes a Weakness: The Technology Wars
Early on, the staff of Golden High School was amazed to discover that they
could communicate among themselves electronically. Teachers could look up a
student’s attendance record, grades, and personal information with the touch of a
button. They could also send emails to the entire staff with ease. While these

67
technological advances seemed to be positive, they soon became the source of
problems.
According to Mulroney, teachers would send emails to one another and copy
the entire staff. The seemingly-informal format, what Mulroney calls the “chattiness”
of the email system, led teachers to engage in large-scale verbal wars against one
another as the staff at-large watched. Mulroney describes the name-calling, the written
YELLING with capital letter messages, and the incessant arguing as an ongoing
source of entertainment for those teachers who were not involved in the battles.
Eventually these wars became tiresome and led many teachers to feel discouraged
about any hope for collaboration or unity. “I remember one gentleman who was
Jewish had gotten into a big fight with another one who was Christian over an ‘I hate
Jews’ [comment]. It was just awful, personal stuff. It was just that outrageous.”
Iribarren recalled a similar series of emails which publicized a personal argument
between department members: “No one stopped it that I know of. No administrator
ever said, ‘This is unprofessional. This stops today.’”
Shortly before Mulroney left Golden for another teaching post, she confronted
the writer of a vicious email. A young teacher had just won an award for her work in
the classroom, and an older veteran teacher sent the entire staff an email mocking the
award and its recipient. When confronted by Mulroney who asked the teacher, “Why
would you do such an awful thing?,” the writer of the email retorted, “People thought
it was funny! Even she thought it was funny!” Knowing the teacher as well as she did,
Mulroney knew that the target of the email did not find it humorous but would not

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reveal her true emotions to the writer. In fact, Mulroney left Golden for this very
reason: “I do not think education is a joke. I do not think my job is a joke. I think we
do noble work, and these people [at Golden] just make a mockery of it day in and day
out. It wasn’t funny to me, so I left.”
When Greg O’Meara joined the staff at the beginning of Golden’s third year,
he noticed that the teachers seemed disillusioned about their new school in many
ways, but they uniformly seemed proud of their label as the “Jewel of the District”
because of their devotion to cutting-edge technology. Unfortunately, Orange County
was about to experience a tremendous financial crisis, and school budgets were
slashed. O’Meara remembered that the administration and teachers wanted to upgrade
their equipment, purchase new and updated software, and add to their growing arsenal
of technology toys: the budget crunch halted nearly all technology-related
expenditures. In O’Meara’s mind, this was perhaps the nail in the coffin for Golden
High School, a place once full of promise with its flagship label, now scrambling to
fix outdated hardware and trying to keep pace with its fellow SAUSD schools.
The Revolving Door in the Principal’s Office
When staff members are disgruntled with their principal, the refrain often
heard is, “Administrators come; administrators goes.” In its short history, Golden has
seen six principals, two of whom stayed for only one year. The turnover among
assistant principals is even more frequently and more turbulent. According to Greg
O’Meara, “you never knew for certain who was going to be sitting in that [assistant
principal’s] office when you walked in. The guy you talked to about this issue last

69
spring was now a woman who recently moved here from Fresno!” Each principal had
his or her own idiosyncrasies that, coupled with abrupt changes in leadership,
encouraged the staff to take matters into their own hands.
Golden’s founding principal could best be described as a charismatic leader.
John Tilley’s charm and energy swayed district teachers to join him at Golden. Tilley
was a visible leader both on the campus and within the community. According to the
founding teachers interviewed, Tilley was “a consummate politician,” “dynamic,” and
“a snake oil salesman.” After three years at Golden, Tilley left for a promotion to a
district-level position. All of the teachers interviewed who had worked with Tilley
noted that he was hoping for an assistant superintendent position, so his mind and
heart were not necessarily devoted to Golden. One teacher claimed that “he had one
eye on the school and one eye on his career.”
Tilley’s successor was Michael Morris, a well-respected principal from a
successful intermediate school. Despite Morris’s reputation as a solid principal with
positive staff relationships, he was not immediately embraced by the Golden staff.
John Iribarren noted that “the staff wasn’t 100 percent behind him at first because he
hadn’t been battle-tested, he wasn’t a high school guy.” Shortly after Morris was
brought on-board, the district began reducing staff and sending displaced teachers to
other sites. While Tilley enjoyed the luxury of selecting and hiring his entire staff,
Morris found himself inheriting Tilley’s teachers and trying to integrate the faculty
members who had been bumped to his site.

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During his tenure, the county and the district faced enormous budget cuts
which contributed to Golden’s declining status as the technology magnet. Kathleen
Watts, Golden’s current principal, remains loyal to Morris who hired her as a teacher.
Watts believed that Morris’s challenges could not all be attributed to outside forces.
“The one thing I learned from [Morris],” Watts disclosed, “is that [the principal]
cannot come into a job and tell everyone they’re doing it wrong.” As a future principal
herself, Watts recognized the importance of observing your campus for a period of
time before you begin to work toward change: “You have to be able to prioritize and
ask yourself, ‘What’s a critical need here?’ or “Is this a battle I want to fight first?’”
Teacher Darren Hudson was even more condemning in his assessment of Morris’s
leadership qualities. While he admits that the staff was “opinionated and independent,”
Hudson maintains that Morris further alienated staff members and often pitted one
program’s teachers against another’s. “A lot of people were very angry with each
other, and a lot of that could be attributed to the ‘favorite child’ syndrome. [Morris]
preferred some teachers and programs over others, and when you saw the difference in
funding and support, you could see the favoritism.” Despite his rocky relationship
with the staff, Morris has to date held the position at the helm of Golden High School
longer than any other principal, a total of six years.
When Morris departed Golden, the district brought in Elizabeth Sirovy. Like
Morris, Sirovy made the early mistake of alienating an already-distressed faculty.
According to Watts, “[Sirovy] told the department chairs, ‘You are not the curriculum
experts. I am the expert. I make these decisions myself.’” Watts admits that she had a

71
positive relationship with Sirovy because she respected her level of experience and her
general knowledge whereas other chairs were not so forgiving of Sirovy’s quick-fire
tone. Greg O’Meara admits that Sirovy was dealing with “really, really difficult
people who were already smarting from six years of Morris,” but he too describes
Sirovy’s people skills as “seriously lacking.” Steve Lawrence witnessed the change in
the physical appearances of faculty members who interacted with Sirovy: “You could
just see them stiffen up when they spoke with her, if they spoke with her. People
would walk away cursing under their breath. You can’t run a school that way.”
Whether it was a sense of over-confidence or a brooding insecurity, Sirovy left many
staff members feeling angry whenever they interacted with her. Darren Hudson
attributes much of this anger to a lack of input. “Anything we had to contribute was
dismissed,” he sighed, “and some people actually felt belittled. It makes you just shut
down.” When Watts was asked what she learned from Sirovy in terms of being a
school leader, she replied, “Let’s just say I learned what not to do [from working with
her].”
Unfortunately for Sirovy, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
(WASC) came to accredit Golden High School during her tenure in 2002. The
majority of the faculty was dissatisfied with her leadership, but a smaller group of
teachers deliberately set out to ruin the four-day visit by bringing out “the skeletons in
the closet.” Elaine Mulroney describes the WASC process as “a total disaster once the
[visiting] committee showed up.” Several staff members knew that some of their
colleagues would attempt to sabotage the visit, and they tried their best to discourage

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the complainants. Darren Hudson remembers many of his colleagues choosing to
voice their unhappiness about the school—about the promise it held and the way in
which they felt it had been destroyed –to the WASC committee. As a result, the
visiting committee recommended only a two-year accreditation. Sirovy was removed
as principal, and the district took a drastic step to repair the damage.
During that same tumultuous year, the California Department of Education
conducted a week-long academic audit at the high school resulting in a Joint
Intervention Agreement. According to teacher and co-chair for the WASC
accreditation Melinda Salazar, the result of this JIA was the elimination of the
school’s block period schedule, the elimination of a daily student advisement period,
and the formal implementation of ongoing support from the Orange County
Department of Education. After a revisit from the CDE, Golden was released from its
Joint Agreement and its accreditation was extended for one additional year for the
2003-04 school year.
Rather than place a permanent principal at Golden in 2003, the Nueva Laguna
Unified School District appointed John Ramos, current Assistant Superintendent for
Secondary Education, to the post. Ramos would in effect serve as both the Assistant
Superintendent and the principal of Golden High School for one year. Since Ramos
had proven himself as an effective high school principal while at Nueva Laguna High
School, the district felt confident that he could restore order to the chaotic Golden.
They were correct. “We all respected Ramos,” said Kathleen Watts. “No one

73
questioned him at all because they respected his reputation, his years of service. He
also listened to us which the other principals had not done.”
Indeed Ramos’s short reign as principal/assistant superintendent was credited
by all respondents as the saving grace for Golden, but there were still many problems
with student conduct and discipline. Elaine Mulroney recalled an incident which took
place that year, one that epitomized the out-of-control atmosphere which the staff still
fought.
This teacher stop the students on campus who did not have a hall pass.
The kid just turned around and beat him, grabs him and smashes the face
into an iron rod fence, and this guy was out of work for the rest of the
year. It was just horrible, just horrible he had to have all kinds of sinus
surgery, vision was affected.

The staff survived its follow-up WASC visit, but the staff knew that Golden was now
a long way from the great expectation it had hoped to become. By the end of the
school year, Ramos departed for his district position and was replaced by Frederick
Snyder.
A Brief Period of Stability
Snyder, the principal of a nearby intermediate school, enjoyed a solid
reputation in the district. Not only did he have a lengthy history as an intermediate
principal, he was also the son of a well-respected administrator who had been in the
district for many years. Veteran teachers knew and respected his father; newer
teachers had heard about his good rapport with teachers during his reign at the
intermediate level. Snyder himself admits that he was interested in serving as the
principal of Utopia High School, a new school scheduled to open in the fall of 2007.

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The district suggested that he first take over the reigns at Golden to gain some high
school experience, and since his children were now older, he took the opportunity.
Now that Golden High School had a particular reputation within the district,
Snyder knew that he was in for a challenge. The school had been undergoing two-year
visits from WASC, and there were problems ranging from low test scores to
complaints from the Office of Civil Rights:
We had a joint agreement with the state department education. They
were making regular visitations at the site. I knew there had been some
issues with [the Office of Civil Rights] although they have been resolved
and I did not get involved with that at all. And I knew that the test
scores were not really should where people that might come and visit.
[...] My first year at Golden was not exactly my favorite year in
education.

Golden’s staff was hopeful that Snyder would stay at the site long enough to make a
positive impact, but even early on there were rumblings that he had been promised the
principalship at the new high school and that Golden was merely a layover on his way
to a better job. Elaine Mulroney recalls the whispering among the staff as teachers
tried to guess how long Snyder would stay and whether or not he would make any
drastic moves during his tenure. “We were not certain,” she noted, “whether or not he
would ever fire anyone, ever take a hard stance on an issue, ever come up with a great
idea. He was a mystery, and I would say that he remained very mysterious. He kept his
cards close to the chest until the day he walked out that door for the last time.”
Unlike some of his predecessors, Snyder decided to watch, listen, and learn
before making any moves at Golden. He allowed staff members to vent openly at
meetings, causing one of his new assistant principals to comment, “That was

75
different” as a particularly heated meeting came to an end. Snyder admits that he was
beaten up for the first few months, but he viewed the distrust and passionate cries as
part of the process the staff had to undergo in order to get past their wounds. Staff
members complained about a sloppy campus where students were frequently tardy (if
they came to school at all) and out of dress code. Snyder moved the focus to the
school’s curriculum. That, he believed, was the most important discussion to have at
leadership meetings.
[T]he tone I tried to take is, “Okay, we will have concerns about
tardiness. We will have concerns about absences, dress code.” But I
said, “Let us focus our energy first and foremost on the curriculum.”
Because my contention is if our curriculum is being implemented in a
way that allows the kids to be successful, we will have cure of those
other problems because the kids would want to be there and they have
got some success.

After convincing the leadership team that discussions about curriculum should lead
each staff meeting, Snyder felt that one of his largest battles had been won.
During his first year as principal, Snyder also noticed that his teachers were not
accustomed to the sudden presence of an administrator in the classroom. He started to
walk into classrooms on Fridays in order to present certificates to particular students
and suddenly noticed that the entire room would come to a half. “The teachers would
stop and look at me. Some would ask, ‘Can I help you?’ or simply ask, ‘What do you
need?’” This, Snyder noticed, was there territory and there was a sense of distrust over
the presence of administrator on their home turf. As Snyder continued the practice, the
staff began to realize that nothing negative came from classroom walkthroughs.

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Snyder also brought in specialists from outside of the district to visit
classrooms, assist teachers with lesson planning, and offer guidance as needed. Most
staff members welcomed the assistance because they knew that they were not being
evaluated during these visits. In fact, Snyder boasted that the two-member WASC
team which returned to visit the site was impressed with the changes that had been
made in such a brief time. Amy Shaw also remembered that the staff felt a sense of
relief that they were not being studied under a microscope once more by the
accreditation panel. “Finally,” she exclaimed, “we weren’t the bad children of the
district. This was proof that we really did care about kids.”
Even Snyder’s evaluation process emphasized a non-threatening, coaching
approach. Staff members recalled the evaluation process under Michael Morris as a
“nail-biter,” a process which could lead to your termination if he did not think you
were an outstanding teacher. Snyder’s philosophy was (and still is) that not everyone
is going to be “Teacher of the Year,” but most people can become decent teachers
with some coaching. He did not attempt to issue non-reelects to anyone because he
firmly believed that his teachers would come around. A few teachers transferred to
other sites while others retired. A small group left Golden for Willard High School
when it opened in 2005. Otherwise the staff remained constant and never worried
about losing their jobs. In Snyder’s view, Golden was on the road to recovery and
success.

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While Golden definitely experienced some progress under Snyder, safety
remained a problem. Mulroney’s memory of a typical lunch period under Snyder
sounds more like the atmosphere at a prison riot than at a lighthouse high school:
When [Snyder] was there the kids were crazed. At lunch time they
would climb up the steps of that little quad area and log water bottles
and Gatorade. I would never leave my class and go out across the
campus during lunch, never. Not for any reason, because it just was not
safe. [Snyder] had been hit by water and one day I got hit by water bottle
at changing period by my classroom. When I told him about it he said,
“Gee, I have not been hit by a water bottle in a while. I was wondering
where all the water bottles throwers had gone. I guess they were in your
area”. Which really was not at all what I wanted to hear.

Snyder’s recollection of the school’s safety issues did not sound as dramatic, but he
did concede that there is much more work to be done in order to move the school
forward.
Shortly before Snyder’s departure, the district had him implement a
fundamental system at Golden. Snyder came from Villa Intermediate which opened as
a fundamental school, and the district thought the same system could improve Golden.
John Iribarren called this another attempt to put a bandaid on a patient missing two
limbs. In a fundamental school, students are admitted by lottery and stay at the school
based upon their behavior. When a student misses a homework assignment, is late to
class, or is out of dress code, the student receives a consequence. As the consequences
build, the student experiences progressive disciplinary measures up to and including
dismissal from the school. Snyder admits, “It is far easier to open a fundamental
school than to create one from an existing campus.” He began implementing the

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fundamental system with the ninth grade class, but he admits that Golden might retain
the word “fundamental” in its title, but is far from being fundamental.
Present Challenges and Future Hopes
Snyder served as principal of Golden for three years before being tapped to
open the district’s newest high school, Utopia Fundamental. His successor was
Kathleen Watts who had served as his assistant principal for three years. Watts was a
popular choice for a replacement since she first joined Golden as a science teacher in
1993. Despite the honor of being appointed to the position mid-year rather than
having to enter an application and interview process, Watts remembered that she was
caught off-guard when she found out that she would be succeeding Snyder.
“Honestly,” said Watts, “I thought I was going to be transferred somewhere else,
maybe to an intermediate school. When the assistant superintendent shows up and
wants to see you and your principal, you had better pack your bags.” Instead of
packing her bags for another site, Watts moved her belongings next door to the
principal’s office.
The school district appointed Snyder as the principal of Utopia and elected to
have him begin work before the end of the first semester prior to the high school’s
opening. Watts would not just be an interim principal to finish out the year, but she
would be the principal. “There was no time for transition. I asked [Snyder] if there was
anything I should know about, but my support during the first few weeks really came
from the district office.” Watts noted that three key administrators at the district level

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offered her encouragement and support, but “I never got to take Principalship 101. I
was just thrown into the job overnight.”
Despite the fact that Watts found no resistance from her staff members, she
was blindsided by a revolt from within the office. According to Watts, three of her
four assistant principals immediate turned on her when she took over Golden’s helm.
“They may have been vying for the job themselves, or maybe they thought they had
more experience than I did, but it took me by surprise. Suddenly I was the enemy!”
Although Watts did not apply for the job at Golden, she did apply two years earlier for
the principalship at Utopia – as did two members of her administrative team. None of
them were hired for that position (it went to Snyder instead), but the sudden ascension
of Watts to the principalship created a rift between her and the others.
While Watts learned from Frederick Snyder about how to take things in stride
and not fret when someone confronts you, she knew she had to take immediate action
to stop the revolt within the administration. Watts had mixed feelings about terminated
two of her assistant principals only because Golden High School had experienced so
much administrative turnover in its brief history:
By the time I became the [Assistant Principal] of Curriculum, there had
been 19 AP changes within six to seven years. How do you do that? I
had seen people come and go, and I know that the staff never felt they
could count on any AP staying longer than two years. It’s madness. You
can’t run a school that way, and you certainly can’t improve a school
when your team keeps changing.

Nonetheless, Watts moved to terminate two of the administrators effective
immediately. Each assistant principal was placed at other sites in counselor positions,
and a lawsuit regarding this personnel move is still pending. Watts’s remaining

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assistant principals each claimed that they were loyal to her, but they describe Watts’s
increasingly-unpredictable behavior as troubling.
David Anderson , one of Golden’s assistant principals at the time, gave a
different perspective on the events which took place when Watts took over. According
to Anderson , two of his fellow assistant principals needed to be let go. While Snyder
never took any overt action to correct the “lazy incompetence” of either administrator,
Anderson believed that Watts was justified in releasing both individuals. He disagreed
with the manner in which she made this move, stating that “[Watts] would just
explode in the middle of a meeting, march into her office, get Lewis Ramos [the
assistant superintendent] on the phone and demand this guy’s immediate termination.
We didn’t know what got into her.” Anderson describes the transition from Snyder to
Watts as “a bomb going off. We never knew from one morning to the next what she
was going to say or do.” While Anderson was picked up by Snyder to become the
assistant principal at Utopia, he worried about leaving the last remaining assistant
principal behind. “I can’t describe it. It was like her stress level shot up and she started
blowing up at people for strange reasons.” While he and Watts parted on a good terms,
Anderson knew that he was leaving a school which would not get better.
By the summer of 2007, one of Watts’s remaining assistant principals, David
Anderson , had been hired by Frederick Snyder at Utopia High School. By the spring
of 2008, Golden’s remaining assistant principal under Snyder had been terminated by
Watts just months prior to the AP’s planned retirement. Watts picked up two assistant
principals from other district high schools to fill two of the positions, and she hired a

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department chair from within the school to take the final place. With a new
administrative team, Watts plans to bring a sense of renewal and achievement back to
a school which has struggled since Day One.
The Challenges of Low Student Achievement
The intention of the Nueva Laguna Unified School District was to create a
flagship school in Golden High School. Golden would be a technological magnet
school for the district and possibly for the entire north county. With a high-powered,
hand-picked staff, state-of-the-art equipment, and the best students in the area,
Golden’s student achievement would surpass even the most prestigious schools in
Southern California. In essence, Golden would be Nueva Laguna’s technological
answer to East Carter’s Margarita Park.
Although Golden’s teachers presumed that their students would come from all
parts of the county and (perhaps) resemble their own ethnic backgrounds, many were
surprised to find that Golden, like most of Nueva Laguna, reflected a predominantly
Hispanic, socio-economically disadvantaged population. Although the state did not
begin to report the number of English Learners taking state content standards exams
until 2005, the teachers understood that their pupils came from a wide range of
primary language backgrounds. While many students spoke Spanish as their first
language, a large number of students came from households where Cambodian,
Laotian, Mandarin, Tagalong, Punjabi, Khmer, and Japanese were spoken.

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Table 4
Demographic Breakdown of Golden High School, 1999-2007

Ethnicity

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

African-American not
Hispanic

10

6

6

9

7

5

4

2

3
American Indian or
Alaska Native
3 4 4 3 2 2 3 6 3
Asian
168 134 118 112 98 101 87 72 79
Filipino
3 5 2 2 2 0 1 1 2
Hispanic or Latino
1642 1641 1613 1784 1829 1694 1675 1662 1754
Pacific Islander
4 8 3 3 2 0 1 2 2
White not Hispanic
52 37 39 37 30 19 22 20 9
Socioeconomically
Disadvantaged
1554 1419 1455 1510 1736 1641 1626 1613 1683
English Learners
1370 1472 1532
Students with
Disabilities
160 140 156
Note. Totals over 100 are considered statistically significant and therefore counted towards AYP.

Darren Hudson remembers that many teachers felt a sense of shock when they realized
that their student population was so diverse. John Iribarren thought his Spanish skills
would come in handy, but his classes were also filled with the children of other non-
English speakers, a problem he had not anticipated. Hudson enjoyed his students
immensely, but he recalls the conversations at staff meetings and mailbox gatherings
as very critical of the student body. “It’s funny how people get into this business to
help kids, so they say,” noted Hudson. “When the scores started coming out and
people saw how lousy our students did, did anyone wonder what they could do
differently? No. They blamed the kids.”

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Elaine Mulroney and Steve Lawrence each remember the students becoming a
quick and easy scapegoat for teachers. Mulroney would scold teachers who said,
“These kids can’t learn. They don’t want to learn. Look at their parents!” In
Lawrence’s opinion, some of the teachers stopped trying because it was easy to give
up on students “who don’t look like you do.” Hudson sensed some hidden prejudices
within the staff which he believes would not be there had the school’s leadership been
strong. “These are the children of Nueva Laguna,” he stated, “and we are
professionally, ethically, and morally responsible for them, be they green, pink, or
striped!” All of the respondents conceded that no one would complain about Golden’s
demographics had the school been making gains academically. John Iribarren sees the
scores as Golden’s self-fulfilling prophecy: the students can’t learn, so we’ll show
them that the students can’t learn.
A longitudinal study of Golden’s academic achievement reflects a very
different reality than the dream that was longed for by so many people. Golden’s
performance on the state’s Academic Performance Index has slowly moved up since
1999, but the school has yet to break the 600 mark which would take it off the state’s
Program Improvement list (see table below).

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Table 5

Academic Performance Index and Statewide Rankings for Golden High School

Year

# Tested

API

Statewide
Rank

Similar Schools
Rank

Difference

Met Growth
Target?

1999

1914

487

2

9

N/A

--
2000 1836 476 1 5 -11 No
2001 1801 499 2 7 23 Yes
2002 1951 504 1 5 5 No
2003 1970 556 2 7 52 Yes
2004 1822 569 2 7 13 Yes
2005 1797 586 1 5 17 Yes
2006 1796 578 1 4 -8 No
2007 1852 584 N/A N/A 6 No

When API scores are analyzed among the district’s four comprehensive high school,
Golden struggles to avoid last place each year. This flagship high school which held
great promise as the county technology magnet school ranked dead last in the district
last year.
While the Nueva Laguna Unified School District continues to be labeled a
Program Improvement District (now in DAIT) for failing to meet its targeted
graduation rates, Golden continues to be the district’s major offender. Golden is
currently in Year 5 of its Program Improvement status, a stigma which ranks it as one
of the lowest achieving high school in California. In February of 2008, the privately-
funded California Dropout Research Project released its data for 2005-06 which was

85
publicized in the Orange County Register. Of the 100 schools with the highest dropout
rates in the state, only two resided in this county. “One is an alternative education
umbrella program that serves about 6,000 at-risk, home-schooled and incarcerated
youths,” writes Scott Martindale (2008). The other school was Golden High School
which ranked Number 35 with 251 dropouts, a 9.6 percent dropout rate. No other high
school in the district ranked in the top 100.
Figure 1: API scores by high school for the Nueva Laguna Unified School District
400
450
500
550
600
650
700
API Score
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Academic Year
NLUSD API Scores: High School
Golden
Kingston
Nueva Laguna
Pioneer

Just as Margarita Park Magnet is undergoing its accreditation review this
spring, Golden too is being accredited by the same association. The process is nothing
new for the Golden staff which feels as if it has hosted visiting committees for the
WASC process on a regular basis. During its last full self-study in 2002, Golden
received a two-year term, along with a list of nine critical areas for growth. According

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to this year’s self-study report, “the results were tremendously disappointing to the
entire school community, [but] did serve as a catalyst for a comprehensive evaluation
of both school leadership and schoolwide processes and procedures.” This is the first
year that Golden is back on a six-year cycle, and its co-chair responsible for the
accreditation hopes that the school will receive a six-year accreditation with a three-
year review, a very positive score for a school with an unstable history. Soon the staff
of Golden will learn whether to expect yet another WASC team to conduct a full visit
within the next three years, or whether they will be allowed to take a collective breath
and continue their slow pursuit of student achievement.
Combating the Life Cycle: Lesson Learned From Both High Schools
Clearly there are significant differences between Margarita Park Magnet and
Golden High School. Margarita Park opened with just thirty students and has
maintained its slow growth and controlled enrollment by being a magnet school.
Golden High School was conceived as a technology magnet for its district, but it
opened as a neighborhood comprehensive high school serving 2600 to Margarita
Park’s 1700. Margarita Park is able to dismiss students who fail to adhere to school
expectations whereas Golden must educate the children they are given, resulting in a
high rate of non-graduates each year. The staff at Margarita Park has cultivated a
familial environment where staff members work together closely and the rate of
attrition among teachers in most departments is very low. Golden loses staff members
each year to the lure of other campuses, and those who leave often do so because they
could not take another year of disappointment and failure.

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These forces have certainly helped or hindered each school, and both high schools
have struggled to maintain or regain their original purposes over time. Margarita Park
has maintained its innovative roots while Golden has felt victimized from its very
opening. Within this dissertation’s three major research questions lie the following
points of comparison:
1. What effect do the principal’s leadership and the subsequent succession of
leaders have on these schools?
With the tragic exception of Principal Gene Williams’s death, Margarita Park’s
succession of principals has been relatively infrequent and very smoothly executed.
Each principal embodied the school’s true vision and purpose by being a living
example of a successful urban student now leading others to peaks of educational
expectations of which they could never have dreamt. Each principal built positive
relationships with staff members and included them in the decision-making process so
that the entire school community felt a sense of ownership.
By contrast, Golden High School has experienced a high rate of turnover
among its leadership. Transitions have been either non-existent or rocky, often
stemming from the hasty reassignments. The principals at Golden have been
characterized by staff members as charismatic, political, cold, indifferent, arrogant,
hot-tempered, and absent. Nearly every respondent called Snyder the most effective of
Golden’s principals because he did not attempt to create significant change and “just
left us alone.” The sudden change of principals over the years – including a brief stint
by the assistant superintendent – left many Centurions either feeling insecure or

88
deciding that the body in the principal’s office was ultimately insignificant to what
happened within the walls of the school.
The style of the principal coupled with the length of service and ability to share
leadership rank as the top reasons why these high schools have succeeded or
struggled. At the heart of a successful principalship is the ability to establish trust
between the administration and the staff. The study of Golden High School has shown
that charismatic and dictatorial leaders have limited long-term influence on a high
school. The charismatic principal could attract staff members with his charm, but
when that quality was used to garner publicity for himself, the staff suddenly felt kept
at a distance. Hours spent courting the press instead of establishing positive
relationships with teachers ended up harming Golden rather than setting it on a course
of high-achievement over the long-term.
The dictatorial principal experienced an even-shorter tenure than the
charismatic leader as a result of her failure to create (or even appear to desire) positive
relationships with staff members. This principal came into the school ruling with an
iron fist, leaving department leaders and other administrators out of the decision-
making process and denigrating the expertise and prior work of the staff. Even though
the high school needed to change course when this principal was hired, the manner in
which she pursued rapid change immediately created a culture of mistrust, anger, and
resentment from which Golden has not completely recovered.
Blame for a flawed leadership style can be laid at the feet of the individuals,
but the district itself is at fault for failing to provide a long-term, high-quality principal

89
who could be given adequate time to establish relationships, heal old wounds, and
make slow but steady in-roads into improving the school. The effect of the rapid
succession of Golden High School’s principals is that the staff began to split with
sizable factions running their own classes and programs independent of a unified
school vision. Had the school the opportunity to work with a single principal over a
period of five years or more, the attitude of “administrators come, administrators go”
may have been diminished.
Similarly, the importance of creating a system of shared leadership which has
the ability to outlast the principal is critical to the long-term health of the school.
When trust is established and leadership is shared, the principal guides rather than
dictates the major decisions of the school, promoting a healthier schoolwide culture
and sustaining decisions beyond the tenure of a single administrator (DuFour, 1999).
Golden High School’s principals have been labeled as distant, dictatorial, laissez-faire,
or “gone in a New York minute.” The staff learned quickly that a high-quality
principal would be promoted by the end of the year while an undesirable one would
likely go away or be let go soon enough. In this culture of rapid succession, staff
members relied on one another in unhealthy ways to keep their programs going. The
long-term effect on Golden has been devastating.
2. How do teacher support and turnover contribute to either the continuation or
stagnation of innovation?
The teachers at Margarita Park feel a strong sense of internal support from
within their departments and from the school community. Since all teachers are united

90
in their mission to elevate the education of minority urban high school students, the
level of trust that has been established with continuous leadership has also been
established within the staff. Teachers at Golden High School began to mistrust the
administration from the moment it opened when the vision seemed to change
midstream. Although staff members have tried to create their own support networks
through academies or academic departments, the school has continued to lose teachers
each year due to an overall feeling of mistrust and defeat. Former teacher Amy Shaw
sums up the problem at Golden this way: “You never know what someone is going to
say behind your back. It’s like we are all in high school ourselves. We are petty and
mean to one another, even as we unite against a principal we hate.”
While the Margarita Park teachers interviewed all appeared enthusiastic about
their current positions and the school itself, the teachers and former teachers at Golden
expressed a different sentiment. Many of those who opened Golden wondered what
their professional lives might have been like had they not joined the staff. The research
shows that teachers experience nostalgia, an emotional as well as cognitive attachment
to the past which may appear better than it actually was compared to their current
situation (Goodson, et. al, 2006), and this phenomenon has certainly manifested itself
with Golden High School teachers. Interestingly, the staff members who ended up
leaving Golden feel little nostalgia about the school. Some mentioned former students
whose lives were changed during those four years of high school, but the predominant
emotion of those who left was one of sadness and despair. Said one former teacher
who joined the staff during its second year: “I just don’t know what you can do to fix

91
that place. I just don’t think there’s any sense of hope, and when you don’t have hope,
you don’t have options.”
While there is research to suggest that teachers experience their own individual
life cycles (Sikes, 1985), none of the teachers or former staff members at Golden High
School seemed to be affected by their own lengths of service. Most of the staff
members interviewed joined Golden when they were already considered veteran
teachers, even if they had only been teaching for five or six years. The staff members
who are still on-site do seem weary, but their malaise appears to be a manifestation of
their collective exhaustion and defeatism rather than their own fatigue from being a
classroom teacher for three decades. The teachers who left Golden and are now
working at other sites in the district describe a sense of rejuvenation as a result of their
departures. One teacher remarked that she is working harder now at her current site
than she did at Golden, “but the work [at my new site] is appreciated whereas no one
ever noticed what I did [at Golden].” Several teachers noted that they still maintain
friendships with people who stayed behind, and they are consistently trying to recruit
their friends to other schools in the hopes of saving them. The ones who stay despite
the temptation to transfer feel an intense internal obligation as well as an
unwillingness to – in their minds – give up.
3. To what extent can/does the broader context, specifically district
leadership/policies and state/federal accountability context, promote sustainability
or change?

92
Although the countless education reform efforts tied to high-stakes testing
have intended to raise student achievement and improve public schools, Gustafson
(2002) shows that the pressure of state and federal accountability begins to tear away
at a high school’s ability to stay innovative. Hargreaves and Goodson (2006) cite
pacing calendars, mastery of content standards, and test performance as the primary
reasons why a lighthouse school’s original mission and vision deteriorates. The
relentless knock on the door from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
(WASC) requires a staff to devote a tremendous amount of time on a regular basis to
the production of an in-depth self-study in the hopes that the school will survive a
four-day visit by a team of educators. All of these pressures have the potential to
distract from a high school’s long-term efforts and success.
The respondents in this study cited the pressures of external accountability as a
major factor in their daily lives only if their schools were underperforming.
Specifically, the administration and staff at Margarita Park spoke of using data to
inform instruction and discover emerging trends, but no one spoke of accountability
measures with any sense of fear. The school has been able to sustain achievement
partly because they are using data effectively if not regularly. As long as the school’s
Annual Performance Index (API), Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), California High
School Exit Exam results (CAHSEE), and graduation rates continue to remain
relatively high when compared with similar schools, the staff is not worried.
Principal Roberta Berry says the pressure for Margarita Park to succeed comes
from within the school because the district and community just assume that the school

93
will do well. “No one mentions Margarita Park. Everyone assumes that we don’t need
help because we have amazing students. Well, someone made them amazing, right?”
She notes that Margarita Park’s real success stories as recognized in the community
are students who would have done well without the benefit of a Margarita Park
education. “I had a student going back to middle school who was brilliant. He got a
five a on the AP Calculus exam and never even took the class. We cannot take the
credit for him, but we can take the credit for many, many others.” Teacher Jeff Draper
heads the social studies department, and his department’s test scores have always been
high: “But if our scores suddenly decreased in one area or another, you can bet there
would be pressure. There would be pressure from me.” Draper does not believe that
any of his colleagues are affected by external pressures because for them, “the
pressure comes from within. We believe in these kids, and we believe in our
teaching.”
On the other hand, external pressure from the school community, the district,
and state of California has been a constant drain on Golden High School’s weary staff.
Teacher Melinda Salazar has felt the pressure of being a department chair, a WASC
focus leader, and a veteran teacher. “It’s almost a joke now when someone talks about
WASC,” said Salazar. “Here we go again. Someone else is going to tell us how awful
we are.” As the school’s test scores are released each year, the faculty braces itself for
another pity party and some seemingly-good natured ribbing from district colleagues,
but “it gets old,” sighs Shaw. “It gets really old.”

94
A comparison of each school’s assessment results on the California Content
Standards Tests is displayed below. Ironically, the high school whose staff feels the
least amount of external pressure has never reported an API score below 600 while its
current scores top 700. Golden High School has long felt external pressure from the
school district, the site administration, the WASC accreditation process, and the
California Department of Education. Although Golden’s scores have improved
somewhat over time, the gains are slow, and Golden has yet to break the 600 mark.
Figure 2. Comparison of Academic Performance Index scores for Margarita Park and
Golden High Schools.
API Scores: Margarita Park HS vs. Golden HS
400
450
500
550
600
650
700
750
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Year
API Score
Margarita Park Golden

Conclusion
The forces which have most heavily influenced change at Golden High School
correlate well with what prior research indicates. Both the type of leader in the

95
principal’s office as well as the frequency of leadership change and the quality of the
transition during that change has had the single greatest influence on the mission and
morale of Golden’s staff. A charismatic leader attracted a high-powered staff to help
open Golden, but his effectiveness soon disintegrated as the staff perceived his focus
was his own career rather than the school. Golden suffered greatly with the rapid
succession of leaders who followed its second principal: one managed to alienate staff,
students, and parents with a single year in office while the next brought some healing
but was quickly thrown back to the district office. Neither of these principals believed
they would be at Golden for a lengthy period of time, especially the poor administrator
who served as assistant superintendent while running Golden. Unfortunately, even
Golden’s most immediate past principal was simply biding his time before he was
allowed to depart for the privilege of opening a new high school campus. It can only
be hoped that Golden’s current principal – a former staff member herself – will be able
to demonstrate effective leadership and focus her efforts entirely on student
achievement.
The frequent turnover of staff members coupled with the school’s inability to
keep a consistent administrative team has led to abrupt changes in policy, lack of
communication and trust amongst stakeholders, and a defeatist attitude within the staff
and student body. That Golden High School has been unable to break the 600 point
barrier on the Academic Performance Index and continues to rank last among the
district’s comprehensive high schools further puts negative pressure on the faculty to

96
perform. The school’s failure to produce a success WASC accreditation report
contributes to an overall feeling of defeat which is also felt by the students.
Perhaps part of the reason why Golden High School has struggled for so long
is that its administration and staff has lost sight of any concrete goals. The tone of
Golden’s staff members, both past and present, depict a community running away
from a negative reputation rather than moving toward a positive goal. The burden of
Golden’s reputation rests wearily on the shoulders of all who have worked at the site,
even those who have since left for other positions. If the school is to move forward, it
must create and articulate specific academic, behavioral, and organizational goals
which will propel it forward rather than allow it to dwell so heavily on the past.
Margarita Park has survived many of the pitfalls at Golden High School
primarily by growing its school at a deliberate pace, building a thriving and trusting
school culture from within. The slow growth of Margarita Park – a school which
opened with just a handful of students and has taken twenty-five years to reach its
current enrollment figures – is admittedly unrealistic for most high schools. What can
be duplicated more easily is the culture which was implemented early, one where the
staff is absolutely dedicated to the school’s vision and to the long-term success of its
students. Along with this dedication, Margarita Park has proven that a school which
adds new staff members each can retain its vision by communication often and
effectively with new teachers. The teachers who join this staff feel as if they are
immediately accepted and embraced, building a sense of loyalty to the school and its
staff from Day One.

97
Additionally, leadership changes at Margarita Park have been infrequent, and
each subsequent principal has built upon the intended mission and vision of the
school. When a smooth transition between principals was not possible the year that
Roberta Berry took over, her promotion from within the organization helped to ensure
a sense of continuity felt by the staff, by the students, and by the parents.
Margarita Park has experienced some degree of turnover in its math and
science departments, but the teachers who have left did not quit out of frustration with
the school; they simply pursued other professions in their respective fields. This is one
area in which Margarita Park differs greatly from Golden (whose teachers left angrily
and whose administrators were generally terminated). When staff members see their
colleagues leaving for other avenues, they do not generally feel threatened by the loss.
By contrast, a staff who sees teachers leave because they have given up hope
inevitably feel defeated even as they remain on-site to fight the battle alone. The sense
of weariness at Golden is not present at Margarita Park, and that the teachers have
departed on good terms helps keep spirits up.
Finally, Margarita Park does not feel the same external pressure that Golden
High School experiences because they continue to succeed at rates far superior to the
other high schools in their district. The East Clark Unified School District views
Margarita Park as a lighthouse high school, succeeding on many levels and serving as
a model for other schools. By contrast, the Nueva Laguna district views Golden as a
trouble spot which requires academic triage. Golden High School is a SAIT school in
danger of state takeover, but Nueva Laguna is itself a DAIT school and not just

98
because of Golden High School’s poor performance. As a result of the school’s
relationship with its district office, Margarita Park does not feel threatened by
potential dips in achievement. The leadership and staff at Golden operate under a
cloud of anxiety which will likely follow them for years.

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CHAPTER FIVE
Summary and Implications of the Findings

Introduction

As countless high schools in California struggle to avoid being labeled,
“Program Improvement,” much of the state’s resources and of the district’s energy
focuses on helping these schools increase academic achievement. No superintendent
wants his or her high school to make local headlines as a failing institution, and thus a
district’s resources are spent in triage with the hopes that the school will make small
gains. Meanwhile a district’s lighthouse high school – relatively new and filled with
great promise of high achievement – may slowly be slipping. It is easy for a district to
ignore the early stagnation of a new high school while it focuses on those schools
which are failing.
Fink and Hargreaves (2000) have shown that many high schools which open
with an air of hope can lose their shine as they face predictable obstacles. Rapid
leadership succession, succession without adequate transition, staff weariness and
turnover, and the challenges of external accountability all play a role in preventing a
lighthouse high school from continuing its path to success. This downhill Change
Over Time may seem like an inevitable lifecycle which dooms any promising new
institution, but the rare school may combat (or at least slow up) the downhill spiral
towards perpetual Program Improvement status.
The goal of this case study was to examine the life cycles of two urban high
schools in Southern California in order to determine whether common obstacles stood

100
in the way of each school’s ability to become a lighthouse for their districts. My
purpose in conducting this study – inspired by the work of Fink and Hargreaves – was
to trace common obstacles and pitfalls in the hopes of helping other lighthouse high
schools avoid this seemingly-inevitable fate. All of the data I gathered was targeted
toward answering the following research question: What forces influence innovative
(lighthouse) high schools to preserve or change their purpose over time?
In order to enrich my primary research question, I also addressed three
supporting questions:
a) How do the principal’s leadership and succession of leaders contribute
to shifts in these high schools?
b) How do teacher support and turnover contribute to either the
continuation or stagnation of innovation?
c) To what extent can/does the broader context, specifically district
leadership/policies and state/federal accountability context, promote
sustainability or change?
This study was conducted using a qualitative case study research design at two
Southern California urban high schools: Margarita Park Medical Magnet High School
in the East Clark Unified School District and Golden High School in the Nueva
Laguna Unified School District. This purposeful sampling (Patton, 2002) allowed me
to explore the ways in which Margarita Park has avoided the pitfalls of the high school
life cycle while analyzing the troubled twenty-five year period which Golden High
School has endured. Since each of these urban high schools more closely reflects the

101
student demographics of similar schools in Southern California, I was eager to
examine the successes and failures of these sites to determine if comparisons could be
drawn between two high schools in California and the high schools in the Change
Over Time? study.
Research Findings
New high schools are often developed with the intention of reinventing and
reinvigorating secondary education. Districts name high-profile principals to open new
schools and set a culture of high expectations in motion. An all-star team of teachers is
gathered from within the school district, drawn to the allure of new classrooms, fresh
paint, and a change to start once again in the hopes that this student body will
somehow be different from the one they currently teach. These new staffs agree upon
a mission and a vision for the new high school, and all wait eagerly for the first
students to enter the doorway. Each new high school hopes to become the flagship of
the district, lighting the way for other schools to follow.
Both schools examined in this case study lie in urban communities in Southern
California, and each school serves a community of students who overwhelmingly
come from underrepresented minority backgrounds and qualify for free and reduced
lunch programs. Both high schools (which opened within years of one another) studied
have experienced the type of obstacles described in the research. Each school has seen
at least one example of leadership succession which occurred without adequate
transition. Each high school has battled staff turnover at rate more rapid than the
administration would prefer to see. Leaders and teachers at both high schools feel

102
some degree of pressure to success in an era of external accountability, though the
degree to which this pressure is felt differed greatly.
The results at Margarita Park Magnet School have shown success over time
despite these obstacles. The school opened with a small student body and a hand-
picked staff which grew slowly over the past twenty years. Teachers joined the
Margarita Park staff in hopes that the school would promote the success of minority
students in the traditionally under-represented fields of science and mathematics.
Though Margarita Park has had a succession of principals, each principal served at the
school for at least five years. The one abrupt transition between leaders occurred with
the sudden passing of a principal and immediate succession of the assistant principal
to the position. Staff members and school leaders feel an internal sense of pressure and
accountability with regard to student test scores, graduation rates, and student
matriculation to four-year universities, though all participants noted that they would
worry if student scores on state and federal exams began to slip. Nonetheless, the
overall feeling at Margarita Park as conveyed by study participants indicates that the
school succeeds through a culture of trust and common purpose.
The history of Golden High School paints a very different picture. Staff
members at Golden became disenchanted almost immediately with the school they
helped to create when the reality of the school conflicted with the promise of what it
might be. Lack of funding meant that the school’s technology emphasis would quickly
erode. Pressure from the neighboring community led to the entrance of a diverse local
student body rather than the gifted and motivated students which staff members were

103
told to expect in their classrooms. The school’s leadership did little to curb staff in-
fighting, and the promotion of pet programs at the expense of other projects divided
the staff. Golden’s quick succession of principals within the past ten years continued
to add to the school’s erosion. Communication breakdowns between school
administrators and staff members created an atmosphere of distrust and discontent.
After a disastrous year in which Golden nearly lost its accreditation, the Nueva
Laguna Unified School District made the drastic decision to place its assistant
superintendent into the principalship, performing two jobs during the entire school
year. While the school regained some stability under a subsequent principal, the
continued loss of staff members to other schools and districts did little to stabilize the
school’s purpose and unity. Adding to the school’s challenges was a dubious
distinction as the lowest-performing high school in the district, a mighty fall for the
school once hoped to become the district’s lighthouse institution.
While most of the research in this study indicates that external accountability is
often perceived as a negative influence on public high schools (Hargreaves &
Goodson, 2006), the use of Content Standards Tests (CST), the California High
School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), and graduation rates are all common indicators by
which schools are easily measured. Using these measuring sticks, the progress,
stagnation, or regression of a school is easily tracked. While both Golden High School
and Margarita Park showed similar patterns of academic progress over the past
decade, Golden continues to struggle below the 600 mark on the Academic

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Performance Index while Margarita Park performs over 100 points higher, a difference
which cannot be overlooked.
It may seem unfair to compare two high schools whose development different
by leaps and bounds. Golden High School was intended to open as a magnet school in
technology, but this promise was abandoned months before it opened. Margarita Park
did open as a magnet school with a limited student body and has continued to run as a
magnet high school. The floodgates were opened at Golden as hundreds of students
became the Golden Warriors on Day One; Margarita Park was given a great deal more
control over its steady growth and eventual peak at nearly half of Golden’s current
numbers.
I would argue that the comparison is a good one because the intent of each
school was the same. The fact that Golden was able to lure its staff members to the site
on the promise of a magnet student body means that Golden opened with a strong (and
strong-willed) staff. That the district broke its promise to staff members immediately
lends to the atmosphere of distrust which has plagued the school ever since. Certainly
Margarita Park could have experienced the same sudden switch from its bureaucracy-
filled district office, but instead this urban school was given the time and resources to
continue its promise as a math and science magnet. The widespread perception of
Margarita Park is that it attracts and retains only the very top students in the city, but
that could not be further from the trust. Margarita Park admits its students not based
on test scores or academic performance, but by neighborhood, sibling, and ethnic

105
minority qualifications alone. The staff at Golden would be hard-pressed to argue that
Margarita Park enjoys the luxury of an honors-only classroom.
There were some important lessons to be learned from a comparison of these
two high schools. Effective communication among all parties is essential in building
trust with a school community from Day One. Certainly a high school benefits from
long-term leadership, and principals who remain at a high-performing school for at
least five years can maintain programs and keep a school true to its vision. By
remaining in their positions for an extended period of time, principals have the
opportunity to build solid relationships with staff members, an essential component in
reducing staff turnover due to frustration. A transition period between principals,
while rare, helps minimize sudden changes in a school and helps ease staff anxiety
over the expectation of drastic changes. Regular collaboration among teachers and the
implementation of professional learning communities, whether formal or informal, are
essential to keeping the school’s high expectations in place regardless of changes in
the principal’s office. Staff members also benefit from understanding the students who
walk into their classroom and refraining from the expectation that all students enter a
school as successful scholars. It is the job of the teacher and of the entire school
community to help all students learn how to become successful students, and the staff
which understands this mission is more successful than the staff who becomes
frustrated when they are facing a room filled with students who did not complete last
night’s homework assignment.

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Connections to Prior Research
As reviewed in chapter two, there is an expected life cycle of a high school
where specific obstacles can be anticipated. It is almost as difficult to sustain
achievement as it is to improve a school which is failing (Fullan, 2006). Even the most
successful high schools must continue a cycle of inquiry which does not throw rocks
at the target in an attempt to be innovative each year, but instead renews a
commitment to student achievement through what DuFour calls, “unfailing
persistence” (2000). As an examination of Margarita Park Magnet High School has
shown, smaller high schools produce stronger academic results by allowing more
individualized attention and more opportunities for students (Stevenson, 2006).
Though Margarita Park’s population exceeds the recommended 900 students, it has
not become the giant that Golden High School has become with over 3000 students.
The Need for Innovative Schools in California
While the Change Over Time? study highlighted significant challenges facing
high schools over multiple decades, the focus of the study was on a group of high
schools in Canada and upstate New York. California’s urban high schools face
additional challenges stemming from high levels of poverty, high rates of English
Learner students, and high percentages of ethnic minority students. The research of
Greene and Forster revealed that only 51 percent of African American students and 52
percent of Latino students earn their high school degrees compared with 78 percent of
their white counterparts (2004). While Fink (1998) watched Ontario’s Lord Byron
High School fall prey to the “attrition of change,” his student population looked

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nothing like Golden High School’s student body. To this day, Golden is
overwhelmingly poor and Latino with high numbers of English Learners. Margarita
Park’s student population is almost completely dominated by African American and
Latino students, yet their achievement levels remain consistently high. Their success
helps support the need for innovative high schools in this state.
The Effect of Leadership Succession
Hargreaves (2005) reminds us that “few things succeed less than leadership
succession,” and his conclusion is perfectly illustrated in this study. While Margarita
Park has managed to provide smooth transitions even in a tragedy by promoting from
within the school, Golden High School’s leadership succession could not have been
less successful. Assistant principals have come and gone in the middle of the night,
and even the most recent transition to a new principal was done with a single
conversation and an imminent move. While Hargreaves notes that sudden and drastic
leadership changes are done to shake up a failing school, the lasting result is that a
school’s staff becomes resistant to any direction from a new principal, choosing
instead to wait it out since that person will gone in a year or two. Nowhere could this
be more true than at Golden High School where staff members began to run renegade
programs with the common understanding that today’s principal would be gone by
tomorrow. The rapid succession of principals running Golden has led its staff either to
leave the school out of frustration or to work as independent contractors who need not
answer to the administration. The succession of Golden High School principals, as
supported by the research, proved even less successful when a charismatic leader

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departed the school (Fullan, 2001). In the long run, Golden’s first principal, a very
charismatic leader, did more harm than good as he left a frustrated staff in his wake
(Fink & Brayman, 2006).
Professional Learning Communities and Shared Leadership
DuFour’s (1999) research – embodied in his own experience as a site principal
– revealed the value of faculty collaboration. With a shared vision in common,
teachers could drive a school’s direction as the principal guides the work. The staff at
Margarita Park holds true to a shared vision which has changed little since the opening
of the high school nearly 30 years ago. This common commitment has kept the
school’s momentum strong even when the leadership has changed. Drawing a sharp
contrast, Golden High School is in desperate need of a strong culture which values
professional learning communities and shared leadership. The school’s history of
principal-staff relationships has been tumultuous, and the frequent changes within the
administration have only created a greater gap between the two parties. Golden needs
a principal who can build trust, commit to stay on-site for at least 7 years, and build
professional communities around a renewed vision of the school.
Resistance & Exhaustion Among Teachers
Teachers interviewed for the Change Over Time? study remarked that their
students became less successful and less responsive as the decades marched on. The
largely homogeneous classrooms of middle-class white students were now filled with
students from single-parent families who had limited English skills, “poor work

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habits,” and “short-term concentration” (Goodson, 2006, p. 52), all of which make
their jobs harder. Even the most veteran teachers at Margarita Park expressed a
genuine enthusiasm for their positions despite the personal challenges of their
students. Not one staff member made a disparaging remark about a student or students
in general, and no one attempted to shift blame to the students and their families. The
teachers at Margarita Park have not succumbed to the fatigue experienced by teachers
described in the research.
It is difficult to say that the teachers at Golden High School experienced
resistance and exhaustion over time since none of them really had the opportunity to
build a program about which to grow weary. Staff members displayed enthusiasm
about their own pet projects which seemed to thrive or endure despite attempts from
others to eliminate special programs. For the most part, the teachers at Golden felt
exhausted by the frequent changes in direction, the continuous pressure to produce a
successful accreditation, and the consistent label as “the problem school” whose test
scores are low when Golden was meant to be the lighthouse of the district. Some
teachers were quick to blame the students for being limited English proficient and
“lazy” while those who had left Golden described the staff tendency to shift blame to
families.
Expanding Enrollment
Perhaps one of the most revealing aspects of this study is the consequence of
rapidly expanding enrollment. Golden High School opened with a large population
and continued to add nearly one thousand students each year. As Fink (2000) has

110
pointed out, this booming population of students leads to a panic to hire teachers at the
expense of a carefully-orchestrated and selective hiring process. The Nueva Laguna
Unified School District supplemented Golden’s opening staff with displaced teachers
from other schools who never had to be interviewed by the principal. The result of this
rapid transfer process meant that the teachers who opened the school were committed
to a single vision while the onslaught of additional teachers was thrown to Golden in
order to keep their jobs. The expansion faculty had no prior loyalty to the school’s
mission, and the original staff members promoted their perceived superiority by
flaunting the label of “Founding Fathers” and “The Originals.” The emotions of this
split which occurred during these years of expansion still stings today, even within
staff members who have long departed from Golden High School.
Margarita Park Magnet High School avoided this issue altogether by
controlling the expansion of the student body slowly. With the support of the East
Clark Unified School District, Margarita Park was able to maintain its success and
avoid the rush to add students to a successful school (Smith, 1987). Even today it
would be tempting to add hundreds of students to Margarita Park because it is a school
bucking the odds, but the district’s commitment to keep the school relatively small is a
major reason why it is successful.
The Pressures of Accountability
Corbett (1987) showed the decline of teacher morale as a result of “teaching to
the test,” an increasingly widespread tendency to put all other curriculum on hold in
the weeks leading up to state and national tests. Pedula’s research (2003) cites a

111
national survey of teachers in 2003 which found that teachers felt pressure to raise test
scores at the sacrifice of any other course content. While the staffs at both schools
were aware of their test scores, only Golden High School reacted negatively to the
pressures of external accountability. Since Margarita Park is considered a successful
lighthouse high school which can serve as a model for other urban high schools, it is a
natural conclusion that the staff would not feel undue anxiety about testing and test
results. Sadly, the past and present staff members of Golden felt so demoralized by the
school’s consistent failure to perform above a certain benchmark on standardized tests
that they seemed to paint themselves as victims of a bureaucratic conspiracy. Low test
scores and poor accreditations led to the unwanted assistance by outside agencies to
help reform Golden High School. While Fink and Hargreaves studied the life-cycle of
the high school, Golden seems to be caught in a cycle of regression, resistance, and
retreat.
Implications for Policy and Practice
The study of both Margarita Park and Golden High Schools has implications
for future policy and practice. It would benefit both the East Clark Unified School
District and the Nueva Laguna Unified School District to examine the implications
and continue to assess their own high schools, even those beyond the two in this study.
As a result of this study, including a review of the literature and an
examination of the data collected, there are several implications for policy and
practice:

112
1. In order for a high school to sustain academic achievement, the person in
the principal’s office should remain in this position for at least five years.
Andy Hargreaves (2005) asserts this “five year theory,” and the leadership
history at both high schools in this study supports this proposal. Consistency at the top
level of a high school is essential for building relationships, establishing trust, keeping
a consistent vision, and creating leaders among the staff. Golden High School has
suffered greatly from the abrupt succession of principals, and the Nueva Laguna
Unified School District must find ways to nurture and retain leaders who are hired to
lead Golden through the next decade.
A superintendent – with the support of the Board of Education – should
prepare for this sustainable leadership by building leaders from within the school
district. Teachers and assistant principals who become principals within the district
have a built-in sense of loyalty to the organization and are perhaps more likely to stay
with a district. District leaders need to establish length of tenure for principals which
will quickly become a district-wide expectation. New principals who are appointed to
any post (elementary, intermediate, or high school) should be asked for a minimum
commitment to the position which will be supported by the district as long as the
principal’s evaluations are positive. In return, successful long-term principals should
be given longevity stipends in order to keep them on-site. Too many successful
principals are quickly ushered to district office positions at the expense of the school
they left behind. A financial bonus for successful longevity in the principal’s office
would offset the temptation to move up.

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It must be noted that even Hargreaves himself would not advocate for a five-
year tenure when a principal is weak, incompetent, ineffective or stagnant. When a
principal is not moving a school forward or is creating a negative culture on campus,
he or she should be moved quickly. School districts will lament that an effective
principal makes an even better assistant superintendent or director, and many school
officials will feel the temptation to promote a successful person quickly. Five years
seems like an arbitrary number, and schools may thrive with a principal who serves
only three provided that an effective transition is in place.
2. A charismatic leader is not necessarily the best leader for a new
“lighthouse” high school.
While the charismatic principal is able to lure staff members to a new site
through a sparkling personality, the “rock star” principal usually brings down a school
in the long run, according to Fullan (2001). Staff members come to depend on a
charismatic leader, only to be let down when the principal’s successor turns out to be
less-than-charismatic. In the case of Golden High School, its initial (and very
charismatic) principal attracted top teachers to the staff only to turn them off when he
courted outside publicity at the expense of running his school. In essence, he used
Golden’s lighthouse to illuminate his own personal successes rather than sharing credit
with his staff.
Superintendents need to consider this research when hiring principals. The
short term attraction of a charismatic leader could lead to the long term downfall of the
staff. The best principal for a new high school may be someone within the district

114
who has a solid reputation as a consensus builder, who has little need for the spotlight,
and who is known for establishing mutual trust. Potential lighthouse high schools need
the Clydesdale more than they need the Stallion.
Principals also need to reflect upon their own leadership styles and ask
themselves whether or not their work will survive their tenure. The confident principal
should immediately begin forming and encouraging shared leadership models so that
decisions are not made “because the principal said so.” When staff members begin to
act on the presumed orders of the principal alone, the continued success of the school
is in jeopardy.
3. When principals and administrators come and go, shared leadership
bodies are essential to a successful high school.
With the departure of a principal comes a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety.
Even the most highly-performing staff can take a collective breath and step back from
their hard work knowing that their principal is leaving. The work of Richard DuFour
(2003) and of José Lavié (2006) which emphasizes the importance of professional
learning communities and shared leadership would have been valuable to Golden’s
staff in the early years. The responsibility of building and maintaining a lighthouse
high school then would have rested with the staff rather than with the principal.
Principals – with the support of superintendents – need to explore alternative
definitions of leadership and relinquish the outdated need to control every aspect of a
school site. Leadership teams need to be built and nurtured internally in order to
promote the shared vision beyond the tenure of a single leader. The development of

115
leadership teams also helps boost morale as staff members genuinely believe their
contribution to the school’s success is valued. Staff members frequently lament,
“Principals come, principals go.” By making a commitment to professional learning
communities and shared leadership bodies, staff members will assume responsibility
for the continued success of a school site and avoid the blame game by pointing the
finger at the last principal.
4. Whenever possible, build a student body and a teaching staff slowly.
While students came to Golden High School in droves over the first three
years, Margarita Park was able to add to its student body at a much more controlled
rate of admission. As a result, Margarita Park did not need to hire an additional 20-25
teachers each year as Golden did. With the sudden addition of a large freshmen class,
Golden High School added 22 teachers to open its second year, and the majority of
these teachers were displaced from other sites. In other words, the principal had no
control over the hiring process whatsoever. The panic to hire a large number of
additional teachers to serve the booming student population undermines the previously
careful selection of staff members who demonstrated a commitment to the school’s
vision (Fink, 2000) and should be avoided whenever possible.
School district and board of education support is crucial for this to occur. A
school community – seeing the successful opening year of a lighthouse high school –
will undoubtedly want to enroll their children en masse. It is best to cap enrollment a
reasonable rate, but many districts are not in the position to control enrollment to the
extent that Margarita Park has done. At the very least, a careful staff selection process

116
must be protected. While it is politically challenging, a superintendent must insist that
a new high school be allowed to interview and select teachers until a full staff is hired
before “dumping” displaced teachers at the site. When certificated and classified staff
members are placed at a site in large numbers without an interview, the commitment
to the school’s vision and culture is disrupted. When it is impossible to avoid a
booming student body, superintendents must give a new high school a chance to grow
its staff through the selection process.
5. External accountability measures are not going away anytime soon. Thus
schools should use them as well as other factors to help guide instruction.
It is easy for educators to lament the implementation of No Child Left Behind
and to complain about the preparation required for a visit from the Western
Association of Schools and Colleges, but the simple reality is that principals and
faculty members are accountable. School districts should continue using data such as
API scores, CAHSEE results, reclassification rates of English Learners, graduation
rates, and accreditation reports to guide the direction of their sites. They should also
rely on other data such as internal benchmark test results, perceived levels of student
engagement through classroom walkthroughs, results from formal classroom
observations, enrollment in honors and advanced placement classes, and participation
in extra-curricular programs to help bolster schoolwide discussions of student success
and college preparedness. Accountability measures provide important feedback for
school leaders and classroom teachers which cannot be easily dismissed.

117
The staff at Margarita Park feels a sense of internal accountability, an
obligation to do their best teaching each day and help students prepare for entrance to
a four-year college. They do not fret about accreditations, API scores, and CAHSEE
results, probably because they have been a successful lighthouse for the district.
Golden High School has played the victim to countless accountability measures, and
many staff members point to outside agencies and factors as the reason why Golden
has earned such a negative reputation.
Principals and superintendents need to focus on external accountability factors
as measurements of school progress. By examining numerous other measures, school
leaders can begin talking to staff members about the story behind the data. Although
Golden has yet to break the 600 mark on its API score, it has had several years of
measurable gain which should be celebrated. A high school’s graduation rate may
seem low, but perhaps it is higher than all other high schools in the district. Student
scores on advanced placement tests may be lower than other high schools, but perhaps
this high school tests all students in AP courses rather than just the top students.
Classroom walk-throughs conducted in November may reveal high rates of passive
compliant engagement, but the same walk-throughs in April may reveal higher levels
of engagement with the same students and teachers. Each piece of data informs our
instructional practice and should be used to help guide, change, or continue past
practice. When principals focus on this data as another measure of student success, the
threat dissipates.

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Recommendations for Future Research
Though this study was inspired by the Change Over Time research (Hargreaves
and Fink, 2004), this case study was limited to two high schools in a small-scale
attempt to apply the research to the California urban high school. For this study to
have applicability to outside schools and districts, a long-range and broader study
confined specifically to California urban high schools would be recommended. It
would also help to examine a group of new and promising high schools over a period
of twenty years while recording the tone of staff, data team, and administration
meetings. This limited study of Golden High School has illuminated the importance of
strong communication and mutual trust in order to build a successful school culture,
one which could be more closely examined over an extended period of time.
One of the most compelling findings in this study is the importance of
sustainable leadership. Golden High School has suffered through the rapid succession
of principals. It would be helpful to study other urban high schools that have been able
to keep their principals for at least five years at a time in order to discover what kind
of effect this sustained leadership has had on student achievement. Alternatively, it
would be helpful to see the long-term effects of sustained faculty tenure on student
achievement. If frequent changes in administration are hurtful to a school’s success,
perhaps frequent turnover of staff carries the same results.
The two schools studied here have student bodies dominated by ethnic
minority students (African-American and Latino) and by socio-economically
disadvantaged students. Many of the students at Margarita Park and Golden are

119
classified as English Learners. It would beneficial to conduct a similar study of two
high schools with different demographics. For example, if it is revealed that high
schools in Shannon County, South Dakota (where the largest ethnic minority group is
Native American and family incomes overwhelmingly fall below the poverty line) and
in Kennebec County, Maine (where less than 2% of the population is non-white and
very few families fall below the poverty line) face the same obstacles over time as the
two in this study, we could draw further conclusions about the universality of the long-
term challenges facing a new high school (National Center for Educational Statistics,
2007). Studies conducted in other urban areas where the predominant ethnic minority
is Asian-American may also produce different results and should be pursued.
Since this study took place in California where class sizes hover around 40 and
the counselor-to-student ratio tops 900, it would also be beneficial to see if the same
obstacles exist for new high schools in other states where class sizes are smaller.
Conclusion
The results of this study suggest that there is a roadmap to follow when
opening a new high school. The construction of walls and selection of school colors
are not a guarantee of long-term academic achievement, but districts and principals
can expect a particular set of circumstances which will present themselves as obstacles
over time. All principals must depart eventually, just as schools staffs experience
periodic turnover. All stakeholders will be held accountable in a number of ways for
producing student success. The manner in which leadership is handed over from one
principal to another has a tremendous influence on the long-range success of the

120
school. Similarly, the rate of staff attrition and the reasons for departure affect the
school’s culture for years to follow. School communities need to examine their
accountability data – both internal and external – and ask themselves what the story
behind the data might be. Working together within a culture of mutual respect and
strong collaboration, the shiny new high school which opens with such promise can go
on to become a lighthouse model for other high schools to follow.

121
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Stine, D. (2000). The Opening of a New High School: The Emergence of a Culture.
American Educational Research Association, 2-27.

Takahashi, S. S. (1998) The Keeper of the House: Principal Succession and the
Mending of the Hearts. American Educational Research Association, 1-25.

University of California at Irvine (2007). Master of Arts in Teaching Program.
http://www.gse.uci.edu/doehome/AcadProg/mat/United States Department of
Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement (2006). Charter High
Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap. Washington D.C.

125
Appendix A

INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS FOR PRINCIPALS

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
What forces influence innovative (lighthouse) schools to preserve or change their
purpose over time?
a) How does the principal’s leadership and succession of leaders contribute
to shifts in the schools?
b) How do teacher support, turnover, and hiring/tenure practices contribute
to either the continuation or stagnation of innovation?
c) To what extent can/does the broader context, specifically district
leadership/policies and state/federal accountability context, promote
sustainability or change?

1. Could you tell me a little bit about your background in education and how you
became affiliated with this school district?

2. Could you tell me about the history of this site?
a. When was this school founded?
b. What led to the decision to open this high school?
c. What was the intended mission for this site?

3. How long have you been the principal of Fake Name High School? (Question
A)
a. Before your tenure as principal, in what capacity did you serve the
school or district?
b. How many principals have preceded you in this position?

4. When you first became the principal, how much of the school’s initial vision
remained the same? In what ways had the school evolved when you took over?

5. Could you describe the way in which you were transitioned into the
principalship? (Question A)
a. At what point in time were you named the principal?
b. How much time were you able to spend with your predecessor before
assuming the leadership?
c. How much time were you able to spend with staff members before
assuming the leadership?

6. How was the original faculty hired for this high school? (Question B)
a. Approximately what percentage of the founding members are still
teaching here?

126
b. Have you noticed a difference between those staff members who
started with the high school and those who have been hired since the
opening?

7. How many current teachers on the staff were hired during your reign as
principal? (Question B)
a. How has the addition of these new teachers changed the tone of the
staff?

8. To what do you attribute any turnover among teachers over the past X years?
(B)

9. How have you and your predecessors dealt with the tenure process? (B)
a. Was tenure a “given” after years of service or was there a great deal of
scrutiny given to probationary teachers?
b. If tenure is not generally granted for years of service: Could you
briefly describe the evaluation process used for probationary teachers?
c. Did this degree of scrutiny vary among principals?

10. I see that your test scores have been ______ and became _______ since this
year. What changes within the school do you believe have had the greatest
impact on this measurement of academic performance? (Question C)
a. If specific programs are mentioned: Did the impetus for this program
stem from the district, from you, or from staff?
b. If data is mentioned: How often do discussions about data take place
within your administrative team? With department chairs? With the
staff at-large?
c. If data is mentioned: How do your teachers use data to drive
instruction?

11. Certainly there is a great deal of pressure placed on the high school principal to
meet AYP and raise API scores each year. How much of this pressure has
come directly from the district? (C)

a. How often and in what context have district administrators
communicated with you about academic achievement expectations?

12. Has there been any discussion at the district level with you about their
expectations for your length of service? For example, are you expected to
remain in your position for a minimum number of years? (Question A)

Thank you very much for your time.

127
Appendix B

INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS FOR CURRENT TEACHERS

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
What forces influence innovative (lighthouse) schools to preserve or change their
purpose over time?
a) How does the principal’s leadership and succession of leaders contribute to
shifts in the schools?
b) How do teacher support, turnover, and hiring/tenure practices contribute to
either the continuation or stagnation of innovation?
c) To what extent can/does the broader context, specifically district
leadership/policies and state/federal accountability context, promote
sustainability or change?

1. Could you tell me a little bit about your background in education and how you
became affiliated with this school district?
2. Could you tell me about the history of this site?
a. When was this school founded?
b. What led to the decision to open this high school?
c. What was the intended mission for this site?

4. When you first joined the staff, what was the vision of the school? How did the
vision or mission evolve/change during your tenure?
5. Could you tell me a little bit about your history with the school, specifically
how long you have been teaching here and subject /grade levels you teach?
(Question B)

6. How many principals have your worked for at this high school? (A)
a. What kind of transition did you notice between principals?
b. How much time elapsed before you began to notice changes once a
new principal came on board?
c. How would you describe any changes in the school’s focus and climate
once a new principal was in-place?

7. In what ways are teachers involved in the decision-making process at your
school? (B)

8. Please describe the extent to which you feel any external pressure (from the
principal, from the district, from the state, from the parents, etc.) to have your
students achieve high scores on the Content Standards Tests. (B & C)

128
9. To what extent has the use of data driven your instruction and that of your
departmental colleagues? (C)

10. To what extent does your school make use of professional learning
communities? Could you describe how PLCs work at your school? (B)

11. In your time at the high school, would you say that the quality of your faculty
has declined, remained stagnant, or improved? (B)

12. In your time at the high school, would you say that the quality of the leadership
has declined, remained stagnant, or improved? (A)

13. What do you see as your school’s greatest challenge over the next five years?
(B & C)

129
Appendix C

INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS FOR FORMER STAFF MEMBERS

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
What forces influence innovative (lighthouse) schools to preserve or change their
purpose over time?
a) How does the principal’s leadership and succession of leaders contribute to
shifts in the schools?
b) How do teacher support, turnover, and hiring/tenure practices contribute to
either the continuation or stagnation of innovation?
c) To what extent can/does the broader context, specifically district
leadership/policies and state/federal accountability context, promote
sustainability or change?

1. Could you tell me a little bit about your history with the school:
a. If an administrator: How long did you serve there? (Question A)
b. If a teacher: How long did you teach there and what subject /grade
levels did you teach? (Question B)

2. Could you describe your time spent at this high school?
a. If an administrator: Describe the mood among staff members during
your tenure. (Question B)
b. If an administrator: What were some significant achievements and
heartbreaking set-backs you experienced during your tenure?
(Questions A and C)
c. If a teacher: Describe the mood among staff members during your
time. (B)
d. If a teacher: What were some of the school’s significant achievements
and challenges during the time you were there? (C)

3. How had the school changed by the time you left?
a. If a teacher: What changes did you notice in the school’s climate, in
student performance, in the expectations of teachers, in the overall
academic performance, etc.? (B and C)
b. If an administrator: What changes did you notice in the school’s
climate, in student performance, in the relationship between you and
the staff, etc.? (B and C)

4. When did you leave? What led to your departure from the high school? (I
believe that all of my interviewees left voluntarily but I will check ahead of
time and phrase the question more delicately otherwise.)

130
5. Looking back now on your experiences, what recommendations would you
have either for teachers or administrators who hope to improve this high
school?

131
APPENDIX D
List of Hyper Research Codes Used to Disaggregate Data

district.pressure
district.support
principal.accountability
principal.background
principal.communication
principal.deptchairs
principal.experience
principal.hiring
principal.transition
staff.background
staff.culture
staff.newhires
staff.original
staff.turnover
student.population shifts

Abstract (if available)

Abstract As difficult as it is to improve a low-performing high school, it can be just as challenging to maintain success or make academic gains at a high-performing high school. The purpose of this study was to determine what predictable factors exist which can derail the success of a high-performing "lighthouse" high school. Four research questions guided this study: (1) What forces influence innovative (lighthouse) high schools to preserve or change their purpose over time? (2) How does the principal's leadership and succession of leaders contribute to shifts in the schools? (3) How do teacher support and turnover contribute to either the continuation or stagnation of innovation? (4) To what extent can/does the broader context, specifically district leadership/ policies and state/federal accountability context, promote sustainability or change?

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Asset Metadata

Creator Avina, Amy (author)

Core Title A lighthouse at risk: combating the life-cycle of the innovative high school

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education

Publication Date 06/26/2008

Defense Date 04/29/2008

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag High School,innovative approaches,leadership,OAI-PMH Harvest,Principal

Place Name California (states)

Language English

Advisor Datnow, Amanda (committee chair), Mafi, Gabriela (committee member), Stowe, Kathy Huisong (committee member)

Creator Email amy.avina@sausd.us

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1250

Unique identifier UC1117430

Identifier etd-Avina-20080626 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-78974 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1250 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Avina-20080626.pdf

Dmrecord 78974

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Avina, Amy

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu