Creating A Culture Of Empowerment
For exclusive use Universidad Torcuato di Tella (UTDT), 2015
KEL514
GAIL BERGER AND LIZ LIVINGSTON HOWARD
Creating a Culture of Empowerment and
Accountability at St. Martin de Porres High
School (A)
“So where do we start?”
Mike Odiotti and Judy Seiberlich asked each other this question simultaneously as they sat in the small administrative office of St. Martin de Porres High School in Waukegan, Illinois. It was
July 2008, and the pair had just begun their new positions as the school’s principal (Odiotti) and assistant principal (Seiberlich).
By all accounts, the new administrators had their work cut out for them. St. Martin de Porres
(SMdP), based on the Cristo Rey model of funding high school education with corporate internships, had opened in August 2004. In its first four years, SMdP had already had two presidents and two principals before Odiotti and Seiberlich arrived. Moreover, the new administrators had inherited a status quo that included challenges related to students (nearly 2,400 instances of tardiness in the previous year and 26 percent of the senior class failing to graduate on time in 2008); teachers (a tendency to place most of the blame for poor performance on students); and the administration (a limited focus on empowerment and accountability for both students and teachers). Recent survey results suggested that only a minority of SMdP’s teachers believed that school policies were administered fairly and consistently or that the school had an organization-wide philosophy about the learning process. Partly as a result, teacher turnover had consistently been higher than ideal. It was clear to Odiotti and Seiberlich that they had to change major aspects of
SMdP to promote its progress and, ultimately, its survival. What was less clear was exactly how to make the right set of mutually reinforcing changes to SMdP’s practices and policies.
Reminding themselves of their commitment to improving students’ lives by creating a learning organization, Odiotti
KEL514
GAIL BERGER AND LIZ LIVINGSTON HOWARD
Creating a Culture of Empowerment and
Accountability at St. Martin de Porres High
School (A)
“So where do we start?”
Mike Odiotti and Judy Seiberlich asked each other this question simultaneously as they sat in the small administrative office of St. Martin de Porres High School in Waukegan, Illinois. It was
July 2008, and the pair had just begun their new positions as the school’s principal (Odiotti) and assistant principal (Seiberlich).
By all accounts, the new administrators had their work cut out for them. St. Martin de Porres
(SMdP), based on the Cristo Rey model of funding high school education with corporate internships, had opened in August 2004. In its first four years, SMdP had already had two presidents and two principals before Odiotti and Seiberlich arrived. Moreover, the new administrators had inherited a status quo that included challenges related to students (nearly 2,400 instances of tardiness in the previous year and 26 percent of the senior class failing to graduate on time in 2008); teachers (a tendency to place most of the blame for poor performance on students); and the administration (a limited focus on empowerment and accountability for both students and teachers). Recent survey results suggested that only a minority of SMdP’s teachers believed that school policies were administered fairly and consistently or that the school had an organization-wide philosophy about the learning process. Partly as a result, teacher turnover had consistently been higher than ideal. It was clear to Odiotti and Seiberlich that they had to change major aspects of
SMdP to promote its progress and, ultimately, its survival. What was less clear was exactly how to make the right set of mutually reinforcing changes to SMdP’s practices and policies.
Reminding themselves of their commitment to improving students’ lives by creating a learning organization, Odiotti