Define your topic. Determine the focus of your public school case study. If you are taking a class in the education field, review some of the topics you have discussed in class. Consult academic education journals that include case studies to determine what topics appear most important to your field. Evaluate current events from news stories related to your local public schools as well as current issues of discussion throughout the country.
Choose your public school. Contact individuals at the school with whom you would be interested in speaking. A good case study will include interviews of individuals at that school, so have several choices in mind, in case you are met with resistance by school officials. If you are in college, determine if any schools work in partnership with your college or ask your professor for a referral or introduction.
Develop interview questions. Draw up a series of questions that you will use to interview subjects at the chosen school. Ask open-ended questions that will allow your subject to expand on discussing a problem as opposed to yes or no questions. Also ask general questions regarding what they are concerned about in your topic field, in case they bring up an important school issue that you did not consider.
Interview your subject. Bring up the issues that you are concerned about, while remaining objective and reserving judgment. Meet with a variety of subjects but keep the group small. For example, if you are interested in evaluating the effects of school breakfast on test scores, you might meet with teachers who test children, parents who do and do not sign their children up for school breakfast programs, administrators who run the programs and food staff who prepare breakfast menu items. Ensure your subjects of their anonymity during the interview and do not videotape or record the conversation without permission.
Organize your data. Consolidate the information you obtained from your background literature search and case interviews. Select the most important items that will be useful for presenting a well-rounded analysis of your case study. Consult with your professor or statistician regarding any quantitative data that you might want to evaluate and add to your case study. For example, if you want to include information on differences in school grades, teacher salaries or school building square footage, you may require additional statistical analysis.
Introduce the problem. Your case study introduction should include the information from your literature search on the problem at hand. Discuss the importance of the issue to public schools, whether it is unique to public schools and your rationale for studying the problem.
Provide background. Provide details about your public school site. Include such information as the location of the school, the demographic characteristics of the neighborhood, the average class size or anything that would help the reader get a clear picture of the school you are studying.
Describe the problem. The body of your case study should lay out the problems associated with the school you evaluated. Describe the information you gathered from the interviews and the feelings conveyed by your subject. Be sure to protect your subjects' anonymity by avoiding names or choosing pseudonyms. If you use direct quotes from your interviews, be sure to offset them with quotes, or use an italicized font. Include topics on proposed solutions for the school's problems and the success rates. You may also include information from your own observations about the school and archived school records.
Summarize and conclude. Provide a brief summary of your findings and conclude with possible alternative solutions or recommendations for subsequent evaluations.