This report is a case study of a federally-funded effort to implement comprehensive change in public education. Specifically, it examined the strategy of the Minneapolis public schools during the past five years to achieve this goal by creating a system of alternative schools, called Southeast Alternatives (SEA). Established as a separate administrative district of the Minneapolis public schools, SEA served as an experiment in decentralized administration, school-community participation in decision-making and parent/student choice among educational programs. The system of alternative schools included four separate school models at the elementary level: a free school, an open school, a continuous progress school, and a contemporary or traditional school. Selected options, based upon the elementary programs, were offered at the secondary level. SEA served approximately 2,500 students and each student had the choice of attending any of the alternative schools. This report focused upon the process through which SEA implemented a system of alternative schools. A description of the process of change was discussed in seven steps: diagnosis, initiation, definition, implementation, monitoring instructional environments, monitoring instruction efforts and stabilizing the program. The evaluation strategies included school-based ethnographies, development and yearly administration of objectives-based tests in reading and mathematics, an affective survey, observations of formal meetings, structured classroom observations, and extensive formal and informal interviews of school and community participants. (Author/JP)