West Springfield Public School (WSPS)

Celebrate the Stories

West Springfield Public School (WSPS)

Appreciative Inquiry Summit

Contributed by

Debbie Morris, MS, Marge Schiller, PhD, Jackie Stavros, EDM, and Suzanne Marotta, EdD

In West Springfield, Massachusetts, the entire school district was invited to participate in a multi-year Appreciative Inquiry (AI) effort to support the district’s Strategic Planning Process. The goals of this initiative were to celebrate an exemplary school system that fosters the wonder of education and life long learning, creates a strength-based environment of excellence that supports children in reaching their full potential, and elevates and gives one voice to the community. Six hundred and fifty people gathered in the high school gym in a quest to discover moments of greatness, dream about what could be, co-create possibility statements to guide the whole district toward their dreams, and plan the first steps that each school could take to start moving in that direction. These two days were the response to a process that began six months earlier with a fifteen-hour gathering to introduce Appreciative Inquiry, identify themes and topics and develop an interview guide. The following short story provides a glimpse of what happened at the Springfield Public School (WSPS) AI SUMMIT in September 2002.

The first step was to create an infrastructure for the project by teaching the AI process to a small cadre of thought leaders inside the school system and by forming a group of volunteers, already trained and experienced with AI, to support the WSPS Strategic Planning Process. This volunteer group, called the “Positive Change Corps,” fueled the flame of generosity that has been a key ingredient to the success of AI school system summits.

Next, the beginning inquiry was launched in April 2002 at a 15-hour pre-summit training event designed to create internal capacity among the 150 teachers, students, parents, administrators, and community members who attended. The April event produced stories of excellence in the schools from interviews across the community. The five topics that emerged were “lifelong learning, role models, learning is fun, valuing everyone and relevance of learning to real life.”

These topics created a framework for the hundreds of summer interviews that were conducted and for the actual SUMMIT on September 3 and 4, 2002. The district’s 400 teachers were invited and paid to attend the SUMMIT as a professional development event, along with approximately 100 children from grades 6-12, and a cross-section of parents, administrators and members of the business community. Balloons with mobiles, artwork and a graphic facilitator, music, three giant computer projection screens, tablecloths and t-shirts helped transform the high-school gymnasium into a positive and energizing place to dream a new dream together. As people walked in to the gym, the sparks were electric, with generous sprinkles of skepticism, curiosity, and delight.

Everyone was grouped in three different configurations throughout the SUMMIT: maximum mix, self-chosen topics, and by school. On the first day, tabletop flipcharts helped participants locate a table that needed whatever type of role they played in life: student, middle school teacher, community member, etc. This principle of “maximum mix” was key to the dialogues of new questions and thoughts in the discovery phase.

The development and presentation of dreams, in the same maximum mix groups, helped people transcend the current reality and remember how to imagine a totally different future. The unpredictable, inspiring, eloquent and touching presentations showed the power of students working as equals with teachers, parents, administrators and teachers; an experience that created new respect and elevated energy.

In the design phase, participants selected one of six themes to work on and formed new table groups. The sixth theme, “a mind at a time,” had been identified from the wishes expressed in the paired discovery interviews on the first day. Each participant identified one wish for the future of the system. Behind the scenes the wishes were collected, collated, analyzed and given to the topic groups in the design phase. A total of nine possibility statements were created and presented at the end of the day, establishing a district-wide strategic framework.

In the destiny phase, participants regrouped again, working with their schools to brainstorm action items for each possibility statement that had been created by and presented to the whole district. These action items allowed each school to move together towards a preferred future, crystallized the SUMMIT experience for individuals and created a platform for post-summit actions. In the destiny phase, the journey continues with the participants taking actions to live into their dreams, and continuing to celebrate new stories and successes.

During this SUMMIT, we learned that small group work gains in importance and effectiveness throughout the two days and adds tremendous value to the plenary sessions. The plenary sessions were most useful for coordinating movement and sharing results from the smaller groups. As participants settle in, breakout groups are better forums for absorbing AI principles, creating inspiration, and achieving clarity about how and why a task is to be done. A SUMMIT high point occurred each time a child spoke: the entire audience in the gym would get quiet, the student was heard and he/she would get a heart-felt round of applause. These moments continuously reconnected the whole community to the voices of students and teachers who can indeed change their world.

To see more about the West Springfield Public Schools SUMMIT experience, go to For information about the Positive Change Corps contact Marjorie Schiller at