Chapter 2: Comprehensive School Improvement at Serve

SERVE assisted schools across the Southeast with various iterations of comprehensive school improvement throughout its course as a Regional Educational Laboratory. Whether the work addressed school improvement efforts, Schoolwide Title I planning, or the federal Comprehensive School Reform initiative, the core focus of the work supported collaborations of school stakeholders with common goals: learning the process for school improvement, identifying needs through data collection and analysis, studying the research, and working together to address the identified needs of individual communities of learners. SERVE was called in annually to provide professional development and assistance, but, as it was not a focus of the federal contract, no formal evaluation was conducted. With this chapter, we look at how the process holds up to what research says is effective professional development and we ask three burning questions: Were we on the right track with the assistance provided? Is comprehensive school reform still relevant? Did we make a difference?