The Development a Methodology and Software to Monitor Participatory School Improvement

This paper discusses the participatory development of a methodology and a software information system for school management. It was created as part of an ethnographic study realized over a two-year period. It involved a working group formed by parents, students, teachers and school administrators who met monthly in a public school as part of a project aimed at improving school climate. Through cycles of implementation and feedback from the working group and two school administrators, we built an open source system to support the monitoring of indicators, objectives and actions defined and monitored locally. These analyses led to the construction of school 'rules' and guidelines during annual planing, becoming an important element in the construction of a more open and democratic school.