However, it is significant that these schools have structures that allow staff to adjust the program as needed. With the backing of planning councils and diagnostic teams, coordinating resources for success becomes a challenge for everyone, rather than the problem of a few. The most consistent threat to schoolwide project success is the change in leadership that occurs all too often and too early in the life of many projects. It is not uncommon for enthusiastic district managers, seeing the success of a creative leader, to move an administrator who initiates a schoolwide project into a new administrative slot well before the new initiatives stabilize, sometimes as soon as only one or two years after a project gets under way. After the departure of a strong leader, even with shared decision making it takes time for a school to establish new relationships and to develop a shared vision with its leaders.
Some sources say that as much as a year's progress can be delayed or lost.
Students' test scores improved on average from the 34th percentile to the 48th percentile in reading, and from the 46th percentile to the 61st percentile in math. Fairview faced a crisis. State budget cuts, coupled with rapid population growth, meant that the school had to provide more services with fewer resources. The 23- room school, originally designed for 272 students, faced an enrollment of 425. And when the principal who had implemented the project accepted a district position, Fairview faced a change in leadership.