In this context, mentoring of inexperienced teachers by the more experienced teachers was a routine and normal activity. The teachers who were not so creative benefited from the innovative ideas of other teachers. To assist teachers in planning their lessons, the school provides instructors with 45 minutes of planning each day to organize integrated activities. Teachers note that without this time it would be much more difficult to implement their restructured educational program because this planning period provided them with a formal mechanism for sharing ideas and information. Further, collaboration can reinforce the appropriation of reforms by providing an avenue for teachers to develop and solidify new skills.
Collaboration can also be instrumental in reinforcing essential changes in school culture.
For example, in the Curriculum study, collaboration was identified as the key means for resolving tension between the traditional class preparation ethic and new curricular approaches. In some cases, third parties may be called upon to help bridge inter-institutional gaps where formal relationships do not exist. Similarly, in California, a middle school network provides a model for transforming schools that focuses on sharing information among schools that might not typically interact. Relating to the Community Many of the reform studies suggest that parents and the community also contribute to the planning process in important ways. Schools that successfully implemented school-based management were most likely to have solicited input from their parent and business communities, and to have used that information to develop new relationships with stakeholders.