Culture
The school motto for Wohlwend Elementary is Be Respectful, Responsible, and Safe which says a lot about the atmosphere of the school. While the entire district is switching to standards based grading and having some uncertainties about their grading system and the outlook on the rest of the year, everyone will still smile at you and say “hi”. The impact of this overall friendliness creates an environment where people feel comfortable. I found myself instantly at peace. In the eight years my teacher has been at the school there have been no major changes structurally to the building. Many of the ideas are the same, and this sameness creates a pleasant atmosphere.
The goals and initiatives of the school are clearly listed in the Staff Handbook, given to each staff member at the beginning of the year. It includes the mission: “Educate Everyone, Every Day” as well as the vision and goal for the school. For each goal , there are listed objectives and strategies as well as responsibilities and clearly stated action steps. One of the major goals of the school is collecting data. The students carry their data binders home every night where they graph their progress in data.
The teachers in the school use PLC (Professional Learning Community) which serves under the idea that “the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators”. The meeting follow a strict agenda where not only is the content predetermined but involvement from the
Once the team’s vision had been established, we became very honest about our personal and professional strengths and our target areas of growth. From this conversation, the team was able to clearly define the focus and responsibilities of the PLC Leader and individual team members. The meeting was successful and everyone is excited about working together. Our vision will remain in the forefront of our meetings, reminding us to always provide a climate in our classrooms that fosters thoughtful and respectful consideration of all viewpoints.
This combined with the achievement related goals and social values become the basis of the schools mission statement.
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
It is important for my students to understand and value learning goals in the classroom. At the start of every chapter students will be supplied an outline of what they are going to encounter in the upcoming weeks.
The plan outlines five goals that we have found for our school district. These goals show our commitment to provide the highest possible standards of education for all students in our district and to ensure the fair and equitable treatment of all members of our community. We consider understanding individual differences in each student and teacher so that we can adopt the appropriate programs of study for them of the utmost importance.
As an administrator, the mission is to use skill and dedication to build an education system, for my school, that will produce positive academic success for all students and manage a complex urban system with efficiency and effectiveness. With reason and prioritized urgency the administrator makes decisions that benefit the school, students, their parents, and surrounding community. Finally, such a mission includes the support from a staff that recognizes the importance of these elements.
Roberts, S. & Pruitt, E. (2003). Schools as Professional Learning Communities: Collaborative Activities and Strategies for Professional Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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.
Traditionally, teacher development typically occurs through trial and error in the isolated confinements of each teacher’s classroom with some periodic whole-group professional development (Goddard & Goddard, 2007). Within the past few decades, many schools and districts, including ours, have considered and experimented with Professional Learning Communities (PLC) as an alternative framework in guiding a more efficient development program for their teachers. PLCs are focused on enhancing student learning through developing teacher practices. The concept of PLC relies on using structured collaborative sessions amongst teachers within the school to build internal capacity. Through PLCs, teachers critically reflect on current
With the many standardized tests, it would be very difficult for leaders to abolish numerical goals. In addition, when teachers and leaders use data to monitor students’ success and drive instruction numerical goals are vital in education. It is also essential when creating the improvement plan for a school. According to Gorman (2015), collecting student data is key in student achievement and school success. Leaders and teachers at Covington High school do a good job using numerical data to monitor the success of the students and the school scores a 10 in this area. Slogans in education would be the vision, mission statements, and core values. In order for leaders to be successful, it is vital that leaders have a clear vision, mission
plan is to improve student learning and to prepare students for the world we live in
However, the PLC process needs to be democratic in nature. Teachers must take ownership of their work. This builds trust in the PLC team, and staff and leadership. Members of the PLC need to be prepared and take ownership of their work.
Clear goals allow students to engage more and feel motivated to participate and do better in school.
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.
To guide the student to excel in their classroom work, a criteria and goal-setting exercise was carried out to enable the student meet expectations through instructions and the learning process. The student was asked to participate in standardized