The Impact of the K-8 Reconfiguration of Three Schools on Parent Trust in a Small Urban School District in New Jersey

<p>The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the reconfiguration of three schools, on parent trust, as measured by parent perceptions in a small urban school district in New Jersey.</p> <p>For this study an interview protocol was developed to elicit parent responses about the reconfigured schools’ ability to meet the middle school needs of their children and it’s impact on one component of the parent school relationship; trust.</p> <p>The reader is provided with direct quotations from the interview participants which consisted of parents with mixed socio-economic and racial backgrounds from the reconfigured schools whose children attend or attended the schools since the fifth grade. The recorded interviews were subject to a systematic procedure of data analysis based on template analysis (Crabtree and Miller 1999). Template analysis focused the analysis on data relevant to the research questions and to make comparisons between the theoretical framework and the experiences of the participants as they described them.</p> <p>Study findings suggested that the majority of the participants trusted the reconfigured schools. Emergent themes from this study described the schools’ principals as paramount to the development of a safe and trusting climate. Subsequently, distrust for the district high school sometimes trumped trust at the elementary level causing parents to look for available “out of district” options as early as 6^th grade.</p> <p>The results of this study could assist district administrators and stakeholders to make decisions based on research when planning, and implementing school redesign as an improvement strategy for the district.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

EdD Education Leadership, Management and Policy

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education Leadership, Management and Policy

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Asante, Frank Ayirebi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Daniel Gutmore, Ph.D.
• Elaine Walker, Ph.D.
• Phillip Williamson, Ph.D.
• Kenneth May, Ed.D.

• school reconfiguration
• parent trust
• school reform
• trust in schools
• Educational Administration and Supervision
• Elementary and Middle and Secondary Education Administration
• Urban Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarship.shu.edu/dissertations/1962

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarship.shu.edu:dissertations-2981