The Indiana University
Restructuring Support Service

 

---

Mission of the RSS

The mission of the Restructuring Support Service is to enhance the successful restructuring of schools interested in fundamental change.

 

 
 

---

Vision of a Future Educational System

Future educational systems will be fundamentally (systemically) different from our current systems, and they will focus on meeting every learner's needs. Each system will serve:

- the learners for which it was designed,

- the other people in the system,
- the community and society that created it.
 
 
 

---

Vision of a Change Process

The process of designing a fundamentally different educational system is a design process which involves all stakeholder groups in the community. Involving the entire community on the design team promotes collaboration among all stakeholders: teachers, administrators, board members, parents, students, employers, and community leaders. Participation in this design process builds cohesion and shared identity among its members and a sense of ownership. Participation in the change process and the new system should be completely voluntary for all stakeholders.

 

 
 

---

Vision of the Restructuring Support Service

The Restructuring Support Service offers two major kinds of services:

- a facilitator or resource person who works with, and gives advice to, a restructuring team in a school corporation, but does not lead the restructuring effort, and

 

- an in-service professional development seminar--offered in the school corporation--that uses an apprenticeship format to enhance the capability of the members of a restructuring team to conduct a successful restructuring effort.
 
 
 

---

Preconditions for Involvement

We believe that a community must hold the following values for us to be willing to support their restructuring effort:

 

 Values regarding children:

• The community highly values its children and their future.

Values regarding the change process:

Community involvement. The school board, superintendent, and principal highly value community involvement in the change process.

Shared decision-making. The school board, superintendent, and principal are willing to empower those directly involved by allowing site-based management and giving decision-making authority to the design team and the new school.

Values regarding education:

• Focus on learning. The teachers, administrators, and board members are highly committed to meeting the learner's needs within the community's budgetary constraints.
• Fundamental change. The participants, administrators, and board members are willing to support fundamental change if the design team and its stakeholders decide that is needed.
• Community involvement. The school board, superintendent, and principal highly value community involvement in the schools.

---

Experience

The RSS was founded in 1992 and has worked with the following school communities: Lebanon, Columbus, Bloomington, and Eastern Greene County. We offer highly trained and experienced facilitators.

 

If you would like to consider us for working with your community to facilitate a district-wide, community-based effort to improve your educational system, please contact Charles Reigeluth at: reigelut@indiana.edu, or send us a letter at the address below.

Restructuring Support Service
Education Building, Room 2276
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405

| Home |

| Systemic Change in Education |

| What is systemic change and is it needed? |
| How can we help schools and communities with systemic change? |
| Services that I offer to people interested in systemic change. |
| Experiences I have had with systemic change in education. |
| Things that I have written about systemic change in education. |
| The Indiana University Restructuring Support Service. |
| The Division for Systemic Change in Education. |
| The International Systems Institute. |