Whole school improvement and restructuring as prevention and promotion - Lessons from STEP and the project on high performance learning communities

We describe two research-tested approaches, the School Transitional Environ ment Project and its successor, the Project on High Performance I,earning C ommunities, that have contributed to building a developmentally based desig n for comprehensive school improvement called the High Performance Learning Communities Model. The model seeks to modify the ecology of schools and sc hooling in order to build the principles of prevention and promotion into " whole school" change. Findings from a series of studies are presented that show that whole school change efforts, when implemented comprehensively and with appropriate intensity and fidelity, may powerfully influence the prev ention of socioemotional, behavioral, and academic difficulties, as well as promotion of the acquisition of the full range of developmental competenci es necessary for life success, well-being, and resilience. (C) 2001 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.