Building A School Improvement Team

The school is responsible for designing and implementing strategies to reach the educational goals of students. The particular high school beliefs that all kids can learn and that the mission of this school is to challenge each student to learn, achieve, and fulfill his /her potential. Principals should lead each school in implementing the policies. In addition, this high school’s improvement plan of the three legal issues: unsupervised students, hallways, and field

I am a member of the Better Seeking Team at my elementary school. This committee is a leadership team responsible for driving decisions and changes in a positive direction. The National Institute for Urban School Improvement describes the school leadership team as “a school-based group of individuals who work to provide a strong organizational process for school renewal and improvements.” (2005, p. 2) As a member of this team, we recently attended the 2015 Model Schools Conference presented by the International Center for Leadership in Education. Bill Daggett, the founder and chairman of the ICLE, says its focus “has been devoted to observing, studying, and supporting the transformation of the nation’s most rapidly improving schools. The key to improving student performance is a tireless focus on providing rigorous and relevant instruction, and that every level of the education organization must be tightly aligned and carefully coordinated around that singular goal.” (n.d.) My professional goal for the coming school year is to implement the major aspects from one of the presentations our team deemed most significant at the conference, the Rigor/Relevance Framework for teaching in a twenty-first-century classroom.

Identifies skills, theories of change, program designs, partnerships, and ways of building schools where students achieve.

“The transformation model requires replacement of the school principal, strengthening of staffing, implementation of a research-based instructional program and new

Strategies that are in place are teachers and administration walk-through with feedback for growth. The school also provides support for teachers whose performance was

Every school district has board meetings throughout the school year. Unfortunately, many parents, community members, & school personnel do not attend such important meetings because they don’t realize or understand the importance of such board meetings or how informative they can be. According to Kankakee School District (2017), the Kankakee School District Board of Education is composed of seven elected members, who were elected by the citizens of Kankakee to serve a four-year term that do not receive no salary for they services, are committed to ensuring a quality of educational excellence that will enhance the opportunities and challenges facing today’s student and additional responsibilities that board members include are selection of the District superintendent, developing general polices according to wishes of the community and requirements of law, hiring school personnel based upon recommendation of the Superintendent and the Assistant Superintendent of Personnel, adopts salary schedules, approves funds to finance school operations, must adopt and review the annual operating budget for the District, and setting the property tax levy to produce adequate funds to meet the District’s financial needs ranks among the responsibilities of the Board of Education (Retrieved from https://www.ksd111.org/domain/68). For this paper, the Kankakee School District board meeting will be used, information learned from board meeting, use of

The benefit of becoming a school administrator will allow me to touch the lives of many students to help them achieve their life’s goals. I will be responsible in motivating staff and holding them accountable while implementing school-improvement strategies such as using data to identify and plan for needed changes in the instructional programs, which is equally important in meeting the goal. I will have involvement in setting educational standards, goals, establishing policies and procedures to enforce discipline, evaluate curricula, teaching methods, and to comply

In light of accountability requirements, fear of not meeting AYP (Annual Yearly Progress), and required school improvement plans, often the idea of “school improvement” is considered a negative attribute. Obviously schools do not want to be singled out or identified as in need of improvement. Teachers often take the same view towards the idea of improvement. We as teachers take very personal that concept of improvement; we often parallel the need for improvement to failure. However my belief is that effective schools are always in a school improvement process and effective teachers too also are constantly adapting their practice in a culture of continuous improvement and growth. Therefore it is important as an effective leader to build a community of trust and collaboration. I quote “We are all in this together. Once we know that we are, we’re all stars and we see that we’re all in this together.” (Disney High School Musical, 2006) These lyrics from a popular Disney movie put to light exactly the school culture where the goal is not personal but as a community to use data driven and research based approaches in reflection and growth that assist all stakeholders.

As an educational leader, I must have a vision and mission statement for the school that is known by the staff, students, and parents. The vision will address the needs of the students academically, emotionally, and socially. According to DuFour (1998), “ Those who seek to transform their school into a professional learning community as characterized by an environment fostering mutual cooperation, emotional support, personal growth, and a synergy of efforts.” The leader must implement a plan that will cultivate the success of all students. The mission will speak to the direction of the school community stating what the desire goals are. The building leader will lead by example. High expectations will be communicated and encourage by staff and students. The educational leader of a school must develop a culture of team work to create a climate that is student friendly. The vision mission and goals of the leader should be transparent. The establishment of common goals is the first step. Without common goals, sustainable progress will be impossible and thus everyone will have lower expectations. The students, parents, and staff should be commented to the goals of every child reaching their full academic potential. The school environment should speak to goal setting and high expectations for all students and staff.

collaborative and ongoing process for improvement that aligns the functions of the school with the expectations

I am propose a model for the low-performing schools in the Southern Area. To design and develop a new strategy to improve the failing schools in the four areas of concern noted above. The attached proposal includes my research for solutions in the following areas: retention, professional development, and parental involvement.

An effective school leader possesses skills to create, implement, evaluate, improve and share a staff development plan. I met with Ben Rhodes, Sandy Creek Middle School’s principal, to interview him on the specific elements of his yearly staff development plan. We began with the design process focusing on the district and school goals. District goals include improving literacy across the content areas in reading and writing, Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum (GVC). Guaranteed and Viable Technology (GVT), and Closing the Achievement Gap (Equity in Excellence). Using a variety of assessments to focus on specific needs, Ben Rhodes and Mary Sonya, our Pupil Achievement Specialist, examined CSAP, Explore, MAP, and RAD data. They use the

Group skills are comprised of 3 core aspects which are: empowering and engaging others, building effective teams and teamwork, and leading positive change. Each one of these core elements is very important in developing group skills and can always be improved if the proper approach is taken.

School improvement is transformation. It is one of the most important actions of a school. It is a process that schools must use with fidelity to ensure that at all students are given the opportunity to perform and achieve at exemplary levels. School improvement is vital to schools and it is a process that cannot be done in isolation. It requires team work, collaboration, and constant analysis of data and setting of goals. School improvement goals focus on how to meet the needs of students. Addressing the educational needs, funding, and achievement gaps between subgroups is collaborative effort involves everyone that has a vested interest in the schools. These basic measures set the foundation for improvement. And so, if it is the

Education reform is a topic that every student, parent and teacher should be interested in because it effects everyone in the community. Many different approaches to education reform have been tried, and even though they seem to work for the time being, there are always more improvements that need to be made. One of the best ideas that has been discussed in the most recent years is getting the parents and students more involved in the actual reform process. Many school administrators see a problem with involving students, even though they are the ones most affected by the changes within schools. Student’s opinions should be taken into consideration because they are the ones who see what happens inside the school and within the classroom, and are the most affected by it. Involving parents and students in the reform of their schools will improve the quality of education, improve parent and teacher relationships and reduce parent and student complaints.