Legters, McDill, and McPartland (1993) describe the problems inherent in departmentalized schools and offer possible solutions:
"Most American middle and high schools, and many elementary schools, are departmentalized--students receive daily instruction from several different teachers because each teacher specializes in a single subject. This practice is nearly universal in high schools and almost as common in the middle grades; it is often reinforced by certification regulations that stipulate only specialized teachers may be used in the secondary grades. The rationale for such regulations is that the instructional content of each academic subject in the secondary grades requires teachers who are experts in the area, and that instruction will be of higher quality when teachers can take special pride in their subject-matter discipline and can concentrate on preparing a limited number of outstanding lessons each day that are offered to several different classes. Although research supports some of the instructional benefits of departmentalized staffing, the risks that many students will not encounter a climate of caring and support have been more strongly documented (McPartland, 1990; Bryke, Lee, and Smith, 1990).
Positive teacher-student relations are made more difficult by departmentalized staffing arrangements in the typical, large middle or high school for several reasons. The logistics of student-teacher contacts in the departmentalized school make it difficult to provide the individual attention or close relationships that many young adolescents need. A teacher who provides daily instruction to several different classes of students cannot get to know well the needs of each individual or to intervene with individualized programs for all who may need them. Students who change teachers for each period of the day will not relate to any of their teachers as strongly as when only one adult is in their classroom, as in earlier grades. Also, specialized teachers may adopt a different orientation toward their responsibility for student success. In the earlier grades, teachers are likely to adopt a 'student-orientation' in which they take a broad view of the education of the 'whole child' and assume a personal responsibility for the success of each individual in their class. On the other hand, teachers in the departmentalized setting of later grades are more likely to take on a 'subject-matter orientation.' These teachers may tend to have a professional identity with others in their field and may seek to maintain higher standards in their teaching and expectations for student performance that may detract from their feelings of personal responsibility for student success.
Recent research indicates two structural approaches may help to offset the negative effects of departmentalized staffing. The first is a form of 'semi-departmentalization' in which the number of different specialized teachers assigned to each student in middle and secondary grades is limited. Analysis of national middle school data indicates that semi-departmentalization promotes a more positive teacher-student climate than fully departmentalized schools, but precautions may be needed to ensure that high quality instruction is still provided in each subject area (McPartland, 1990).
A second, and more common, way to offset the negative effects of departmentalized staffing is to implement interdisciplinary teacher teams that have specific team-member responsibilities for the success of each student. During regularly scheduled team planning periods, teachers can identify students who need special attention and follow through by providing extra academic help and coordinating problem-solving approaches with students and their families. Teams may be especially effective when combined with a teacher-advisory function in which every teacher is assigned a manageable number of students in the school as his or her particular responsibilities for advice and individual support. Evidence from national data on middle schools shows that interdisciplinary teacher teams in departmentalized schools usually contribute to more positive school climates (McPartland, 1992). Qualitative evidence also supports the potential advantages of interdisciplinary teams and adult advisors to offset some of the threats to a more personalized, supportive climate in the departmentalized middle school (Robinson, 1991; Lipsitz, 1984; Arhar, 1992; Alexander and George, 1981; MacIver, 1990; Maeroff, 1990; Connors, 1992)." (pp. 72-73)
