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Associating the personnel turnover in the small, rural public schools of Willcox, Arizona with implementation of a plan for change under the National Institute of Education's Experimental Schools Program (1973), this paper attempts to explain staff turnover in terms of the anthropological concept "world view" as manifest in pupil-centered vs adult-centered perceptions of time. Specifically, this paper asserts that Willcox school personnel hired under the Experimental Schools Program were faced with an ambiguous situation in that there was no clear distinction made between adult-centered and student-centered roles. The analysis of extensive formal and informal interviews with school people as presented here suggests that: there was a definite correlation between staff turnover and the impact of the Experimental Schools Program; the creation of new positions for implementing federally sponsored change is no easy task, since people brought in to be change agents do not seem to be able to operate effectively without a personal tradition of pupil-centered or adult-centered "world views"; and the adult-centered world of administrators can more readily incorporate new people within its structures than the pupil-centered world. (JC)