0.6 Walker, j. (february 2009). superheroes or sams? a change in  (Page 3/7)

When the project began in Kentucky, principals were working an average of 10 hours a day with approximately 67%-87% of that time spent on management concerns, with only 12.7%-29.7% spent on instructional issues. The time-use studies in these schools demonstrated that once principals were given guidance on how to shift their priorities away from managerial tasks, they were able to spend more time on instructional tasks. Three years after adopting the ASAS program, principals in the Louisville schools spent over 70% of their time on instructional issues and student achievement rate of gain increased (Shellinger, 2005).

In addition to the achievement data, responses from surveys of parents, students and teachers demonstrated a dramatic improvement in the visibility and interaction of the principal. One year after the implementation of SAMs, almost 50% of the students’ perception of the principal’s role focused on supervising instruction, which is nearly eight times the number of students who had a similar perception before involvement with the SAM project. Similarly, 45% of parents recognized student achievement as the primary role of principals compared to only 6% a year earlier. Teachers’ perceptions mirrored those of the students and parents with almost 80% of the teachers noting that their principal was more engaged in instruction with the involvement of the SAM program.

Expansion of sams

The results in Kentucky have piqued the interest of educators nationwide. The Wallace Foundation now supports replication of the SAMs process in nine states (Iowa, Illinois, New York, Georgia, Delaware, Texas, Missouri, and California), and in more than 40 districts and over 200 schools. As the SAM project continues to expand across the country, the project may look different in each district. Primarily identified as a change process, SAM has evolved into four different models allowing districts to adopt the model that best suits their needs while focusing on principal/instructional time. Two of the models include full time personnel, either a person whose position is new to the building or a person whose position has been converted to a SAM. The third model does not involve additional personnel but assigns duties to an existing position, while the fourth model employs periodic data-driven analyses of time use. Each of the four models imposes restructuring the principal’s time through deliberate and consistent time analysis.

Iowa’s sam: overview

At the start of the 2007-2008 school year, four Iowa public school districts incorporated the SAM project with 10 principals/ SAMs teams at the elementary, middle school and high school levels. By the end of the 2007-2008 school year, 10 more principal/SAM teams were added for a total of 21 teams in seven districts. For districts interested in participating in the SAM project, there were three requirements: (a) to collect baseline and annual data describing the use of the principal’s time, (b) to conduct daily meetings for the SAM and the principal, and (c) to hold monthly meetings with the SAM, the principal and the SAM Coach.