Abstract

The authors’ purpose is to assist superintendents, principals, teachers, teacher leaders, and district leaders to cope with and understand the school’s reality to sustain promising initiatives while simultaneously acknowledging the frustrations and the challenges in school improvement. Using recent research literature, the authors address important issues related to school improvement: fostering ongoing commitment into improvement efforts; developing capacity to implement improvement efforts; finding time for necessary planning, collaborating, and sharing; and, sustaining the improvement effort. Findings suggest that improving schools are the result of the enhancement of capacity, leadership as a shared enterprise, leadership as a nurturing activity, and professional development planning as a closely aligned activity with the improvement agenda. Finally. it is critical for all collaborative partners to understand that the work of school improvement is difficult but worth doing for long-term commitment to build a capacity for change.