ABSTRACT
Over the past few years we have attempted to document the evolution of an effective schools project within the Halton Board of Education, located in Ontario, Canada (Stoll and Fink, 1989, 1990, 1992). Now that we both have left the Halton Board, we can look back on this attempted system-wide change process in a somewhat more reflective way than when we were in the midst of its daily challenges. We initiated this reflection when we more recently summarised what we had learned, what we thought we had learned, and outlined areas where we needed help from the research community (Stoll and Fink, 1994). We described our experience as an ‘odyssey’ because of the twists and turns that the project took from its initiation. We continue this reflection on our ‘odyssey’ in this chapter by describing how, of necessity, our narrowly defined conception of school effectiveness broadened and deepened and ultimately became woven into the very fabric of the school system.
