The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' perceptions of the effects of their collaborative involvement in the school planning process. It is a descriptive case study of three elementary schools from a large east coast suburban public school district that had participated in the district's "Effective Schools Project." These schools evolved from beginning the collaborative planning process to full staff involvement and in some cases, community collaboration on the school operating plan.

This descriptive case study consisted of basically qualitative research, however it also contained a quantitative dimension. The first part was a questionnaire administered to 104 teachers in three schools. The questionnaire survey measured teachers' perceptions of student achievement, the staff's level of collaborative involvement over the last several years, teachers' attitudes regarding collaborative involvement, and what factors motivated teachers to want to become involved in the process. Descriptive statistics and multivariate regression were used to analyze these data. Following the survey, focus group interviews with three teachers from each of the three schools who had been at those schools the entire time of transition were conducted. Participants for the focus groups were selected from different grade levels and years of teaching experience. The interviews were tape recorded, transcribed, coded, and a content analysis was conducted. Next, three principals from each of the three schools were interviewed separately and their words were also taped, transcribed, and coded. The last part of the study was a review of records consisting of biennial plans and their reports, standardized test scores and other demographic data on each of the three schools. A content analysis of these records was also conducted.

It appears that those items on the questionnaire that were common to teachers' motivation factors had the highest frequencies and percentages for agreement as did those items dealing with perceived student achievement.

Eight themes or constructs emerged during the interviews with teachers and principals--evolution and changing paradigms, implementation of the school plan both before and after collaboration, training, time, ownership, appreciation and recognition, empowerment of teachers, and the whole school as a community. Many of the salient quotes drawn from the interviews have been presented to share the voices of teachers and principals who have been involved directly in the collaborative planning process.

The data collected from the regression analysis of the survey neither confirmed nor failed to confirm the qualitative data, due to a lack of reliability of two of the scales. However, when looked at simply as descriptive data the survey responses corroborated with the interview data. Teachers' focus group interviews were supported and validated by principals’ interviews and by a review of records from the three schools. These records included school operating plans and their final reports as well as standardized test scores. Teachers and principals in these three schools perceive that student achievement has improved since teachers have been involved in the collaborative planning process as indicated by standardized test scores and by other indicators of achievement noted in the evaluation component of the plan. They also perceive the overall school climate as improved since teachers have become collaboratively involved in the school operating plan.