Don't be a creep: My Misadventures with Scope Creep in the K-12 Setting!

 

Hi all! So, as a reminder, I am a teacher in an undisclosed district here in the great Houston, Texas.  I wanted to give you a bit a context before I began sharing this story of "creepiness."  I have taught now for seven years, including COVID years and have worked at two districts. Simply put, education is a bit of a mess right now. There is, in my opinion, a misalignment between vision, mission, goal, and execution. That is where the scope creep seeps in. Scope creep occurs when a project acquires new, unauthorized features that potentially disrupt a project's budget, timeline, scale, or other major points (Larson,2009).

Out of an abundance of caution and respect, the district, school, and parties involved have all been made up, although the story is true. I work as a math teacher at Tamela Mann Middle Charter School. It is one of the most difficult middle schools to get into in the city since the school provides high-level advanced placement courses and nationally recognized organizations. This year, the mathematics team was under the direction of Dr. Taylor, who was a first-year assistant principal. She directed the math and athletics departments despite having no background in either subject. Under her was our department head, Mr. Klein. Mr. Klein was an amazing mathematician but had very poor communication and social skills. Besides Dr. Taylor and Mr. Klein, there were eight more math teachers on the team, including myself. We were charged with revamping the geometry exam for high-performing students this year. In the year prior, the department used a "matrix" to determine who would be placed in the course. This matrix includes a series of self-paced online courses in which students had to earn a certain amount of points and a placement exam. While this was well enough, the curriculum changed suddenly at the start of the year, forcing us to change the matrix. I will recall the events by month.

In August, we were informed of the curriculum changes, with Dr. Taylor assuring us that everything was aligned and perfect. Despite Mr. Klein's concerns, she dismissed them, saying 'oh, it will all work out. No worries!' This lack of foresight and understanding of the potential issues with the changes is a clear example of the misalignment in our system. Then, in December, parents and students started to ask about the geometry placement work and we released the old geometry matrix to all. At this point, the entire math department was concerned, but again, our voices went unheeded. In February,  Dr. Taylor called an emergency math department meeting to discuss the misalignment of the matrix and the recreation of a new matrix. This is the beginning of the project because we have to develop a new geometry matrix. After working after hours and nailing down the issues, we presented a new Geometry matrix. It was approved, and the information was sent out. In late March, Dr. Taylor informed us that the district wanted to add two more placement exams and use previous semester data in the matrix. This is an example of scope creep within the project because more demands are now added, and it will affect multiple points in this process. In April, after Spring Break, we were informed that we would change the curriculum again and use upcoming state assessment scores in the matrix. Finally, as we were consolidating all of the student information in May, we had to change the matrix a week before the finalized due date to remove national testing scores. This added an extra two days of work time to all of our schedules, and the final date for the overall placement was pushed back to when students were dismissed from school.

In summary, due to misalignment, mismanagement, and very poor communication, students and teachers were confused as to what the actual goal was and were misdirected on geometry placement. 

I would love to hear from you all. How many times was the project affected by scope creep, and what could have been done, if anything, to mitigate the issues? Have a great day!