Star Potential

Welcome to a typical morning at Constellation Community Middle School, a school that is anything but typical. You may have walked past the crowds of people going to work in the business district just a few blocks down Pine Avenue. Perhaps you were drawn to the school’s small sign or the displays of students’ science projects hanging in the windows outside this former department store.

Inside, you’ve found all 132 students gathered in the large front room, where they are reciting the pledge of allegiance and the school’s guiding principles. The school’s five teachers, who are standing around the perimeter of the room, make a few brief announcements: Today, there’s a reminder about an upcoming holiday dance and an admonishment to keep food away from the computers.

The teachers and students then file down the narrow, bare-walled hallway into their respective classrooms to begin the school day. It’s only after they’ve shut the doors, in the ensuing silence, that you begin to realize how strangely alone you feel. You’ll discover two aides in the main office, but you won’t find a principal, vice principal, or counselors. Farther down the hall, you won’t run into any librarians, security guards, or custodians. In fact, you won’t find anyone else in the school except the teachers and students, who are now spending their time focusing on exactly what they say they’re here for--teaching and learning.

And as you walk up and down the hall, you’ll see plenty of tangible evidence of what the school has gained by eliminating administrative personnel: a lab full of spiffy new computers, not to mention the smallest class sizes of any middle school in Long Beach.

Constellation, a charter school now in its second year of operation, was started by two teachers who had a vision of re-creating a school’s organizational and budget process to reflect their “foundational belief” in the interaction between student and teacher. That interaction, the teachers believe, is the most important part of a child’s education outside the home, and all resources and energies should be directed toward it. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with administrators or staff, they say, it’s just that when resources are tight, a school has to keep its priorities in focus.

Like a handful of other principal-free charter schools that teachers have started around the country, Constellation has been able to capitalize on the flexibility that the state’s charterschool law and the school district afford it. This public school’s regulatory and budgetary freedom gives teachers the control to manage the operation as they see fit.

But as the Constellation faculty and others have found, the administration-free routine is no walk in the park. For starters, teachers are left on their own to work through the tangle of payroll and accounting procedures. They shoulder additional responsibilities in scheduling, budgeting, planning activities, communicating with parents, and maintaining the building. And for all the extra time they put in, they’re often at odds with the local teachers’ union and its contract requirements.

Still, those hurdles haven’t caused any second thoughts for the Constellation faculty. It’s a matter of trade-offs, the teachers say. They’d rather have the extra responsibilities in this system--and the accompanying autonomy--than the limitations and sometimes nonsensical administrative requirements they’ve worked under in the past.

The Constellation idea began quite literally in the middle of the night for Jim Norris, one of the school’s founding teachers. He had served on a restructuring committee at a nearby middle school with other teachers, and his quest for a new school model had driven him to insomnia.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, and the word ‘constellation’ popped into my head,” Norris says. The “constellation,” he says, refers to a group of “stars": parents, students, and teachers. That same night, he typed up a nine-page proposal that has remained largely intact as it evolved from a school-restructuring proposal into a blueprint for an entirely new school.

Constellation’s charter calls for a small school jointly run on a day-to-day basis by the faculty. On the school’s year-round calendar, teachers work an extra 20 days a year to allow time for staff development, curriculum planning, and conference attendance. A governing board made up of five staff members, four parents, and one community representative votes on school policies.

To hear Norris tell it, the school’s budget is not only its most distinguishing characteristic but also an expression of the school’s mission. In the early planning stages, Norris estimated that after bureaucratic expenses, only $1,900 of the state’s $3,200 per-pupil allowance actually made its way to the classroom. “We just wanted a much larger piece of that to reach the classroom,” he says, “and we had to do without people to make that happen.”

The principal’s post is a case in point. In his old school, Norris says the principal came into his class about once a year. Students would, of course, go to the principal’s office for discipline. But as Norris calculates it, at roughly $60,000 a year for the principal’s salary and benefits, that amounted to about $250 to $300 per referral to the office.

Maintenance costs fell under the same scrutiny. Norris says his old classroom used to be swept once or twice a quarter. And when the paint in his classroom was peeling, he learned it would cost the school $5,000 to repaint it. “When I pay one of these people $5,000 to paint our classroom, that’s coming on the backs of our kids,” he says.

All of this is not to say that Norris is opposed to having additional school personnel. He says the school’s staff roster would look different if he had a per-pupil apportionment of, say, $10,000. “I’d keep it small, but I’d hire a full-time administrator--I wouldn’t be messing around with payroll. But when there’s no money and you’re spending one-third of your resources outside of the classroom, this makes no sense to me.”

Constellation’s budget draws directly from district funds, without any supplements from outside contributions. When it comes time to draft the school’s budget, the teachers discuss priorities, draw up a budget, and submit it to the governing board for approval.

The teachers also distribute copies of the budget to the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders so they can review it, too. Norris even incorporated the budget into his math lessons last year. (When students saw the line item devoted to a lump sum representing teachers’ salaries, Norris remembers with a chuckle, “all the calculators flew out.”)

Yet the students have been taught to understand the realities of the budget trade-offs. “When they say, ‘We want lockers,’ we pull out the budget and say, ‘OK, what do you want to give up?’” Norris says.

And since the students are responsible for cleaning the classrooms, hallways, and bathrooms, the teachers pose a similar question when students say they want a custodian: “Where do you want to cut $30,000?”

Still, the middle schoolers take a certain pride in the role they play in balancing the budget. When asked how they feel about not having a principal and taking on custodial duties, their candid response is almost always the same: The school saves a lot of money, and it’s been able to afford new computers as a result.

And the students understand that their average daily apportionment, which nets about $20 a day per student, is what keeps the school in business. “We average about 97 percent attendance,” Norris says, “because the kids want to be here so they can contribute their $20.”

So how do teachers’ duties at Constellation differ from those at other schools? Behind the classroom door, there’s not much to distinguish them except for smaller classes and a high degree of teacher-student familiarity. But on any given day, the teachers have an extra hour of instruction and 30 more minutes of supervision than their district colleagues. Plus, the teachers estimate that they spend five to eight additional hours each week on administrative responsibilities.

The typical schedule calls for sessions from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday through Wednesday. The faculty teaches regular courses in the mornings and reading and elective courses in the afternoons. On Thursdays, school gets out at 1 p.m. to allow for teacher planning, meetings, and other activities. And on Fridays, the whole school goes to the park or to the beach from 12:30 to 3 p.m. for the physical activity they miss by not having a playground.

At lunchtime, the teachers make up for the lack of a playground by acting as hosts in their respective classrooms. On a recent Thursday lunch period, for instance, one teacher offers to let students listen to Mariah Carey on a tape deck in her classroom. Another arranges to show a movie on the VCR in the unfurnished common room, where students sit cross-legged on the industrial-carpeted floor. As the movie rolls on, the teacher circulates around the room with a giant trash bag for students to dispose of their lunch bags and wrappers.

When school lets out at 1, another teacher oversees a small crew of students on cleanup duty and is later called on to run interference when a tussle breaks out near one of the bathrooms. Afterward, he and two other teachers meet behind closed doors for an appointment with the parents of a struggling student.

But it’s at the once-a-week faculty meetings where Constellation teachers’ unusual status is most evident. Since there’s no faculty lounge, the meetings take place in the school’s makeshift library, a small windowless room with a smattering of bookshelves, yellowed books, and rickety wooden chairs.

Mary Ruffner, the teacher who founded the school along with Norris, moderates. She specializes in conflict management and resolution. “Faculty meetings all of my life were very one-way,” Ruffner says. “Now, we sit down at a table and say, ‘This is a problem, how are we going to handle it?’”

At a recent meeting, the sometimes spirited discussion lasts for more than two hours, well past 6 p.m. Ruffner reads the agenda from a list that all five teachers and the two aides have drawn up together, with plenty of impromptu questions and asides contributing to the egalitarian mood. Topics of discussion include a proposal to buy bicycles so the school can teach cycling and offer a bike trip, a discussion of who will judge the dance contest at the upcoming Halloween party, and a status update on negotiations with the teachers’ union. The teachers also propose elective courses they could teach in the afternoons next session, including aerobics, Spanish, photography, music appreciation, and conflict management.

Christopher Quint, one of the school’s 6th grade teachers, says that the meetings are a far cry from faculty meetings he has known. “At my other school, they seemed like this big black blot in the day,” says Quint, who oversees Constellation’s facility maintenance and community contacts. “In my first year there, I voiced my opinion about things, and people looked at me like I was crazy. Now, you get something done, and it feels good. There’s no back-biting. There’s real work taking place.”

Zobeida Castillo, the school’s other 6th grade teacher, was a police officer before becoming a teacher. After teaching at another school, Constellation appealed to her, she says, because she wanted to be able to work more independently in the way she had as an officer. “I was used to being on my own,” says Castillo, who is in charge of the school’s purchasing and parent-involvement activities. “I like that I feel like I am one of the bosses or one of the principals.”

“They’re fun--we really enjoy the meetings,” adds Ruffner, who, aside from teaching 7th grade and an elective course in conflict management, is also responsible for governing board meetings, payroll, and student activities.

Ruffner adds that having teachers claim ownership in the administrative process is more than a practical matter. In doing so, she says, they serve as good role models for students, who are learning to take responsibility for their own actions in her conflict-management course. And even though it has been time-consuming--and difficult--to manage the school, Ruffner believes the Constellation model could easily be replicated.

“Any school in Long Beach could do this,” she declares, “as long as you have a common understanding and commitment.”

In fact, Constellation is only a few miles away from another principal-free charter school in South Central Los Angeles. At the Accelerated School, located in a residential area bordering on an industrial strip in one of the city’s most troubled neighborhoods, four teachers have taken the lead at a K-6 school of 82 students.

The school’s co-founders, Kevin Sved and Johnathan Williams, split their time between teaching and administration. The two other teachers work full time in the classroom. In addition, a teaching aide helps out in each of the school’s three multiage classes.

Like the Constellation founders, Sved and Williams were idealistic, energetic teachers who broke away from another school to turn their vision of education reform into a reality. In this case, the school follows the accelerated-schools model pioneered by Stanford University’s Henry Levin. Its underlying theory dictates that schools should have high expectations for all children and should incorporate the community of parents and families.

Like the Constellation model, the school, which opened its doors in the fall of 1994, also encourages participation from all levels. “It becomes a habit,” says Sved, sitting in the small faculty lounge. “You want to know what other people think. You know their feedback can make it a better decision.”

As if to illustrate his point, another teacher walks in and poses a question: A student has asked to leave her class to join the celebration for her cousin’s birthday in another class. “Do we have a policy on that?” the teacher asks. “I don’t know, what do you think we should do?” comes Sved’s reply.

The Accelerated School’s faculty meeting reflects a similar collegial atmosphere. Sitting around a classroom table eating ice cream sundaes in the late afternoon, the four young teachers mull over such issues as enforcement of the school’s uniform policy.

It appears that students are wearing the right colors but not the right apparel. They’re showing up in white undershirts, for example, instead of button-down shirts.

“I think you’re going to have acrimony,” offers one teacher.

“Don’t say ‘you,’” teases another.

“I say ‘you’ because I’m going to send them right to you,” laughs the first teacher.

“Maybe we could relax it a little bit this year and enforce it next year,” suggests a third teacher.

Working through such issues can be cumbersome, says co-founder Williams, but the problem-solving process is part of the school’s mission. “Everybody’s got to be able to put their issues on the table,” he says. “We all have had to compromise, and that’s a part of it.”

Nancy Hunt, a professor of education at California State University, Los Angeles, serves as a mentor for the Accelerated School and attends faculty meetings frequently. “They have some decisions they make without consulting, but Johnathan and Kevin are always willing to go back and say, ‘Let’s think about it together,’” Hunt says. “It’s always an issue--which decisions can be made by a group and which can be made by an individual.

“There’s no doubt that sometimes a more autocratic model is more efficient,” Hunt adds. Still, she says, “I think this is a pretty tight ship.”

At the district and the union level, teacher-led charter schools offer both promise and pitfalls. Constellation’s Norris says he’s thankful the Long Beach school district has been open to innovative leadership experiments. And the teachers agree that working with the district has become easier now that they’re beginning to master the maze of payroll and purchasing rules.

But tensions have continued to surface as the school pushes for more autonomy in its spending decisions--autonomy the district is not used to providing. After all, it is the district, which approved the charter proposal, that must assume ultimate responsibility for the school.

From the teachers’ point of view, it’s a simple matter of accountability. They say they want to make their own budget decisions and are prepared to take full responsibility for them. Ruffner, who signs the checks at Constellation, puts it like this: “If we blow it and end up with no money by March, it’s our problem, not theirs.”

A similar tension exists for Constellation’s teachers in dealing with the union. Four of the school’s five teachers are members of the Teachers Association of Long Beach, a National Education Association affiliate.

Norris acknowledges that his school has received more support from the union than teachers running charter schools in other districts. But the fact remains that many provisions outlined in the union contract simply do not apply to the teacher-led management structure. And as those issues become evident, the teachers have pushed the union to grant them exceptions.

Grievance procedures, for example, are a moot issue at principal-free schools like Constellation. After all, the whole point of teachers working together is being able to settle grievances among themselves. Currently, the Constellation faculty and the union are trying to iron out contract language relating to such issues as pay for a longer school day and an extended school year calendar.

Though the teachers have so far been able to settle several contract issues, Ruffner wonders why the local union isn’t more proactive in its support of schools like Constellation where teachers rule the roost. “If we as a group say this is what we want, then they should be supporting us--they should be celebrating this,” she says. “Why aren’t they celebrating what they have been promoting forever?”

Robert McClure, the co-director of the NEA’s Charter School Initiative, says the union has not laid out specific rules for dealing with such an organizational structure. The NEA has worked closely, however, with one teacher-led school in Minnesota. (See the accompanying story, “Northern Lights.”)

According to McClure, such schools might find that certain contract issues may be harder to work out than others, depending on the local union. “There are going to be places in local associations in which they are trying very, very hard to protect a certain right that is hard-won over many, many years,” he says, and the union will be less likely to grant a waiver in those cases.

Using the example of grievance procedures, McClure admits that teachers in a teacher-led charter school probably wouldn’t need to follow the union’s stipulations. But still, the union wants to make sure that at least some procedures are in place to protect teachers. “It’s going to be important that teachers are very clear up front about how problems are going to be resolved,” he says.

The teachers at the Accelerated School sidestepped these issues altogether by leaving United Teachers of Los Angeles, the city’s teachers’ union. Both Sved and Williams are former union members who felt a contract negotiated for the 1992-93 school year cut an unfairly harsh deal for the district’s young teachers. Williams, in fact, was the union representative at his old school before breaking away at Accelerated. “I still have friends at UTLA,” he says. “I think they now respect the decision we made to try something different.”

Sved believes their new school works best without interference from “outsiders” requiring detailed rules and procedures. “The way to keep the teaching staff happy is to give them a significant role in decisionmaking,” he says. “What we’re doing is really the bottom line of what any union would want for teachers.”

Of course, Constellation and Accelerated aren’t the only schools to operate without a principal; the idea itself is as old as the one-room schoolhouse. And charter schools across the country with other management structures certainly challenge the norm in other ways. At Hilltown Cooperative Charter School in Haydenville, Mass., for example, management is divvied up by expertise: Teachers work together to make the educational decisions, while an administrator supervises the office tasks.

But there’s something about a school that’s led entirely by teachers that seems to foster a different kind of camaraderie among staff members.

It’s apparent at both schools when the teachers are still around after the clock strikes 5 or even 6 p.m. on a long school day.

It’s apparent at Accelerated, where a long faculty meeting comes to a close with a discussion of a play one of the teachers plans to see that night.

And it’s apparent at the end of the Constellation faculty meeting, when Norris asks, “Anybody want to go out for something to eat?”

Quint says the camaraderie stems from all the participants being fully engaged in the decisionmaking process. “To me, it’s more like family,” he says. “Once we decide where we’re going, there’s no whining.”