The NEW School Rules is a philosophical approach to implementing change in school organizations . This approach depends on working together in teams, being willing to adopt new habits, and then share successes and mistakes with coworkers. This guide helps individual members to practice what they learn by involving everyone in teams. Habits thus reinforced become second nature. The SEPAD method uses five steps to develop these habits: Spark, Expand, Practice, Apply, Debrief. The first three steps are discussed in a group meeting and will require five to forty-five minutes each depending on the habit being implemented. The Apply step is modeled within the meeting but then involves three weeks of individual practice in the real world. The last step is a thirty-minute debriefing session where members critique their results. Throughout the organization, teams will be in various stages of beginning, implementing, and completing the SEPAD method.

This guide offers specific and helpful aids for leaders working with teams in all stages. The user guide also provides links to places where readers can learn more about such topics as habits, psychological safety in talking about mistakes, and how to debrief. Corwin customers who were early adopters of its book, The NEW School Rules, requested a guide for help with implementation. Three of the original authors took on the challenge, based on the results reported by several early implementing school districts that employed the SEPAD method, to construct this useful book. Simple graphics serve to illustrate examples and provide navigational flow. Empty layouts and lines for note-taking and thinking through responses make this a self-contained guide for sharing with teammates and for revisiting in the future. The redundancy of graphics may require instructions by leaders before team members successfully complete individual exercises. All-in-all, this simplified guide should serve well and eliminate the need for hiring a coach.

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