High Impact Practices For Schools

Our parish has seen a drop in the math scores with the new PARCC test. With this weakness being of the utmost importance, a responsible district leader, should engage in professional practice by ensuring that their administrators and teachers are working as a team to improve student achievement. Everyone should work together in order to promote positive change concerning this districts math scores. Observations should be conducted by the administrators and by district level supervisors in order to find any strength and weaknesses that may need to be addressed. ISLLC standard 2, states that the school administrator should sustain an instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth. In order to do this, everyone on the team must be open to diversity and innovation, which includes the constructive criticism from the Danielson Rubric used during observations, and adoption of new curriculums. The district level supervisors have to provide professional development for all teachers in order to implement a new curriculum

Making Middle Grades Work recommendation (CSR), Georgia Assessment of Performance on School Standards (GAPSS) recommendations, improvement team suggestions from the state department, various community consultants, and self-evaluations within the school all had major effects on improved academic performances and the culture of the school. The first areas for improvements targeted Language Arts, Mathematics and Reading. We simply felt that these areas would give students the necessary attention academically to be successful. Secondly, we strive to make sure our students do well on standardized testing and promote that their reading is beyond the classroom. The school’s contact with successful mentorship programs help structure the social, emotional and even cognitive aspect of healthy growth for our

Today, many states and schools systems are adopting a standards based education system. In fact, according to Common Core Standards Initiative (2014), forty-three states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) have adopted the Common Core State Standards. The premise is that if all critical subject areas follow a standard from state to state, that all students will receive the same and fair education. The Vermont State Board of Education saw a need and a value in implementing such a system. As such, the Board created a strategic plan to implement a framework of standards that would eventually adopt the common core standards. This paper will discuss the strategic plan created by the Vermont Board of Education and evaluate whether or not the goals of the plan were met through the Framework of Standards.

As schools were faced with these daunting expectations to meet standards, state agencies, school boards, and administration all had to re-evaluate current practices, not only in the form of what should be taught, but how it should be taught (Performance Evaluation Advisory Council, n.d.). In more appropriate terms,

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.

“Common Core State Standards Initiative” is a result of the “Standards and Accountability Movement” which began in the 1990s in the United States. This particular branch of education reforms was geared towards expectations of learning at each grade level. The Standards and Accountability Movement not only brought attention on what students were expected to learn, but on teachers as well – focusing on how teachers were to implement lessons and able to teach for student achievement which would be measured in

The Georgia Department of Education recently approved the Georgia Standards of Excellence to replace the Georgia Performance Standards. This paper will compare and contrast the elementary social studies section of the Georgia Standards of Excellence (GSE) and the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS). According to the GADOE (2015), these standards provide expectations for instruction, assessment, and student work. The comparison of the two sets of standards will be accomplished by noting the similarities and differences for each set of standards and by revealing the significant changes towards a more discipline-centered approach in the social studies curriculum.

There are five stages to help implement a school-wide change. The first is “becoming informed” and this is the stage that centers on research and information gathering. The goal of the principal is to educate him/herself as much as possible so that he/she can better understand the benefits, concerns, and effectiveness of trying a new program in the building. This is also when any testing or screening would need to happen so that the principal can get a clearer picture of the needs within the school based on the current student population. The second stage is “building support” which is just as the name suggests. The goal of the administrator is to build support for the new changes and to have faculty buy-in so that teachers and staff members are motivated to make the change. Furthermore, this is a key time for the administrator to act as a leader and model so that he/she may inspire others to act and make positive choices in regards to the program. The next phase is “creating an action plan” which is usually with a small group of people hand selected by the administration. This group figures out the nuts and bolts of bringing the change into the school by looking at the schools readiness for such a program, funding, and gaining commitment from the staff. Also during this time, the administrator is setting goals, problem-solving, and finding ways to delegate and support those working on the plan. The fourth phase is “implementing the plan” and may seem like a time

Closing the achievement gap is not an easy task. However, education leaders have a moral obligation to create a system of student supports and a belief system in which all students achieve beyond the standards. A superintendent's belief system and passion need to extend outward. As you move your institution toward the goal of everyone passionately believing, as a district leader, you only hire teachers, administrators, secretaries, bus drivers, custodians and all staff members who believe this as deeply as you do. By doing this, you begin to change the culture of your institution be it a school or an entire district.

While standards and assessments tell us whether students are gaining the skills and knowledge they need, accountability systems say that if they aren’t, schools and districts have to take steps to improve. This expectation of action is critical if we want all students to graduate high school ready for whatever they wish to do next – be it attend college, train for a job that will allow them to support a

The entire Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards focus on actions/ skills that leaders should be modeling in their schools, and there is not one standard that is more important than another. Leaders should be concentrating on how to make the learning environment more effective for student learning. In this essay I will give the challenges faced in that standard and the purpose of the standards and how do they impact that educational community.

In Leverage Leadership, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo presents seven principles or levers that great principles and other school leaders take to effectively transform their schools into greatness. These seven principles, or levers, enables continuous, about-face, and duplicable growth for schools and their leaders. More than half of a principle time is spent on things that does not transfer into student achievement and/or success. However, with purposeful emphasis on these seven levers, the exact time investment leverages more learning. School leaders plus the seven levers equal more student achieve, thus setting the school on the path for greatness.

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

As we review and synthesize data of a district for planning school improvement, the following information is needed to access and determine the needs of a school. First, a thorough analysis of performance data must be reviewed to see how school districts measure up with state and federal accountability. During this process, it is very important that schools focus the performance indicators that will guarantee growth and success. School teams must refer to the districts mission and vision to guide the planning process. The performance indicators will provide data that will be beneficial in creating improvement strategies. So, after careful evaluation of the data, the next step would be to plan effective methods and strategies that will improve student achievement. Moreover, this plan should include needs, demographics and opportunities for students to be successful. Additionally, the baseline data is important information to include in the improvement plan.