Teachers would get more staff development in reading. Planning meetings would ensure everyone understood the skills and concepts they needed to teach. Throughout the city, staff at probation schools went through what a number of observers describe as a grieving process, starting with denial and progressing through anger, depression and acceptance. Where teachers got moral support and a sense of direction, they more readily accepted the need for change. But simply telling people they're not doing a good job is not going to work.
Support is critical to the probation process.
Several weeks into probation, Greer got word that her long-time colleague Lula Ford, now at central office, would be Hartigan's probation manager. Greer's anxiety melted into relief. Ford had been principal of Beethoven Elementary, five blocks to the south, and she knew the neighborhood. They gave me someone who had dealt with the same kind of student population, who would be very realistic. And that was a blessing.