A Sample School Improvement Plan: At the beginning of the school year, I, the principal at Redstone Elementary School, sat

down with my faculty to determine the best course of action for our instructional improvement plan. I knew there would be more buy-in and respect for the plan if the faculty created it. I, of course, had some ideas of the direction I wanted it to go but knew that if I presented it that way, there would likely be resistance and bad feelings towards the plan. First, we spent some time revising out vision and mission statements, ensuring that they involved high expectations for all students and staff members. We addressed attendance issues and brainstormed solutions for how to get our students here daily. We also determined that one of the things we would like to improve about our school is that we have low parental involvement. It occurred to use that perhaps we are not sure of what it is the parents are in need of, so we created a short survey for parents, which was sent home and determined areas that parents would like to learn about, which we are using funding for making sure those workshops occur regularly and that childcare and food are provided during those workshops, so parents will be encouraged to attend. We also determined from the surveys that parents enjoy coming to the school to see their children perform and receive awards, so we have included those events with our workshops and seminars, too, which we are hoping will encourage an increase in parental involvement. Parents can learn parenting skills or have questions answered by our social worker but can also receive information on the Common Core and how to help their children at home and the importance of regularly school attendance.

The faculty also determined that parents should know about our MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) that our district offers when a parent or teacher has a student concern that can be medical, behavioral, or academic. We will include that in one of our seminars and the process and outcomes we hope for, so parents are aware. We also discussed the importance of technology as a teaching and learning tool. We agreed to use regular formative assessments for students, and discussed the importance of the teachers and paraprofessionals we hire as being highly qualified. Newer teachers and some master teachers are participating in the

district-mentoring program so our newer teachers receive additional support in their first three years of teaching. Next, we discussed the importance of making sure that Redstone Elementary School is a safe place for students to come. We also reviewed and revised our emergency plan, so we are prepared in the unfortunate event of an emergency. Further, I asked the teachers prior to this in-service day to take a brief survey on what professional development they felt was the most necessary. As stated above, letting the teachers decide what the need is the best way to determine what they need and what they will be most interested in. I will arrange for the top items they decided upon, and will make sure there is follow up for their professional development and accountability, so we make sure we get the most out of what was taught and learned. Finally, I let the teachers know that because of the new SAGE testing here in the state of Utah, that this year will be a baseline for our data. I told them that this

didnt mean that they didnt need to have their students try their best on their tests this year, but that it meant we wouldnt have any data from previous years to compare it to. As a result, I had determined that the measure of data we would use this year would be the Dibels program to measure reading because it was something we have used for the past eight years, and had not changed, so it was still a good way for us to measure data and student progress this year. As a team, we determined that 69% of our students benchmarked last year by the end of the year. We recognized that we felt there was definitely room for improvement in this area. Our new school goal is to improve this by 2%, so our new goal is for 71% of our students to benchmark by the end of this school year. We also determined that this goal primarily focuses on the students in the higher quartiles and felt we needed to improve on ensuring that there would be high expectations for all of our students, as stated in our new vision and mission statements, so we decided to include goals for the lower quartiles, too. For our lowest quartile of readers, we are setting a goal of 10% by the end of the year. For the second to lowest quartile our goal is for these students to improve by 5%. We decided as a faculty that it makes sense for the goals for the students in the lower 50% of students to improve more because they are further behind their peers, many of whom are already benchmarking. In math our only measure that we have used in the past that will stay the same into the coming year is the Acuity benchmarks. These are quarterly

benchmarks for students in first and second grades and trimester benchmarks for students in grades 3-6. Our goal for all students across the board is that from their

pretest to their posttest, we want them to improve by 25%. Based on previous years data we feel that this is a reasonable goal for all students. Midyear Dibels Update: I conducted a data project for the designated school. The school contained many different demographics, including students that are in special education, ESL students, and those on free and reduced lunch. I analyzed the Dibels data that was gathered at the beginning of the year and compared it to the middle of the year to determine if students in different demographic areas were making adequate progress. I did this at each grade level and also looked at the whole grade level and graphed which students were categorized as intensive, strategic, and at benchmark, so we could see who was making progress and who still needed to make progress towards their end of year goals. I presented this data at a faculty meeting, to make my staff aware of how their students are doing. We then found things from the data to celebrate and identified areas that needed improvement. I had each grade level share their celebrations and areas of improvement for the whole staff. Then grade levels sat down to determine what they were going to do to make the necessary progress by the end of the year. While somewhat tedious to create, the teachers found this information to be very valuable because it showed growth or loss of growth in all of the different demographic areas. Some grade levels are doing a great job of reaching all students, and some were able to identify areas that they arent reaching students, and determined plans for how to reach them.

In addition to the data I analyzed and gave my faculty, we have been meeting weekly to collaborate, where we have been looking at data, determining which individual students are not making growth in their progress monitoring in reading and those that arent reaching the 25% increase that we want to see in the Acuity math benchmarks. students. Re-teaching opportunities have been provided for those

If students continue to meet the goals, additional interventions and

accommodations have been provided.