Date of Submission

8-7-2022

Document Type

OIP

Degree

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

Keywords

evaluation, policy, school board governance, adaptive leadership, servant leadership, change management

Abstract

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) aims to address the problem of practice (PoP) of a breakdown in the policy development cycle. The breakdown has resulted in a lack of evaluative feedback on the extent to which policies have been implemented as intended and are effective in achieving their intended outcomes. The PoP challenges elected trustees, in a large and diverse K–12 school division in Western Canada, to carry out their governance role. To address the PoP, the OIP offers a comprehensive change implementation plan, guided by a four-step change path model, actions, and continuous improvement cycle, supported by communication strategies intended to occur over a 3-year period. A case study approach for monitoring and evaluation will provide an in-depth description and identification of key themes derived from the enactment of the implementation plan. This OIP is grounded in the theoretical underpinnings of constructivism and organizational learning and the leadership approaches of adaptive and servant leadership. The change process will engage trustees, the superintendent, and members of an advisory group in co-learning opportunities to strengthen the board’s governance function by creating and piloting a policy evaluation framework. Addressing the PoP will lead to the desired state of an evaluative culture in which policy evaluation findings inform the governance work of the board, foster strong engagement practices with a focus on social justice, and support evidence-based decision-making. The change process described in this OIP could be applied by other school divisions to enhance their policy evaluation function.

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