In our recent efforts to improve student achievement, we have engaged in a new process for continuous school improvement. The continuous action-planning process explicitly includes stakeholders from across the school community in examining data and determining what is needed to bring about equality in outcome for all students. Together with staff and other stakeholders, teams examine practices described in research as contributing significantly to building educator capacity for:
The continuous improvement planning process enables districts to ensure infrastructure, policies, and procedures are in place to support school teams to install, implement, and sustain new programs and innovations. This requires districts to engage their central office staff in continuously finding, designing, and implementing progressively more effective services and supports for improvement of teaching, leading, and learning across the district. Both districts and schools engage in an action planning cycle.
See attached spotlight indicators.
Together with their staff and other stakeholders, teams examine practices described in research as contributing significantly to improving student learning. Research suggests schools that are doing an effective job in meeting their students’ needs share common attributes:
These practices are referred to as “School-Level Expected Indicators.” These Indicators were identified by the Academic Development Institute as essential to accelerate improvement of educator practice and significantly increase student achievement. Expected Indicators should be viewed as integrated and interrelated since none will bring about significant and sustainable change in schools when implemented in isolation.
The continuous school improvement process engages schools in assessing and building their capacity to initiate, support, and sustain improvements aligned with the attributes above. New learning occurs throughout the process and leads to changes in behaviors, policies, and practices, and ultimately, the culture of the school. As interventions and practices become embedded in the daily routine of the district and school, that is, as they become “the way we do things here,” Leadership Teams move forward in their continuous improvement process to identify emerging problems of practice. They then engage in the action-planning cycle depicted above to select and implement other research-based practices essential for addressing identified needs.
In the coming months, we will be sharing information about these indicators, how our current practices align with the indicators, where we intend to take steps toward improvement, and how we will monitor progress.