This study analyzes the experiences of community college faculty, staff, and administrators managing reactive change to comply with Assembly Bill (AB) 705. The bill is California legislation chaptered in October 2017 that fundamentally reforms assessment practices used to determine college readiness and place students into English and math courses. Because legislated change is imposed on colleges, this study seeks to understand how change agents justify the need for change, react to legislation, and overcome deeply rooted practices to enact new ones. Through qualitative methods and using organizational change theories specific to academic settings, this study analyses secondary interview data from 28 participants across eight community colleges. The findings revealed variable perceptions about (1) the assessment, placement, and remedial education practices in place prior to AB 705, (2) the mandated nature of the change, and (3) the anticipated impact of the legislation on students and the organization. These findings revealed that legislated change calls for colleges to intentionally allocate time for change agents to interpret the legislation and come to terms with how the change will impact their work, students, and the organization. Additional findings show that to comply with legislation, change agents engaged in top-down change while interpreting the legislation and then used a bottom-up approach to manage the change at the college level. All the while, change agents engaged in sensemaking and sense giving to understand the reform, develop strategies to comply, and work to institutionalize the change.
