School Improvement Plan

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Leadership and the School Vision

School data is used to determine what needs to be improved.  Research is conducted to determine the best route to address the improvement areas. The data and alternatives are presented by the school improvement (SIP) team and a plan of action is created.  The school principal submits the plan to the superintendent or designated proxy for review. If approved, it is presented to the school board. If approved by the school board it is then presented to the state for review. At any time in this process the plan is not approved it is sent back to the school improvement team for revision. Once the plan is approved, the principal informs all stakeholders of the plan, the process in which the plan will be carried out, and the roles of each stakeholder. Barring circumstances beyond a school’s control, such as a pandemic, there is an expectation that the benchmarks for each area are met at the proposed time.

In order to implement and sustain a school improvement plan, we must look at the “key elements of the process, enabling conditions for improvement, issues of school culture, and implementation” (Protheroe, N. 2011)

Dr. Ronald S. Thomas, interim department chair at Towson University in Maryland, provides the following tips to create and maintain a school improvement plan:

    • Tip 1: Focus the school improvement planning process solely on increasing student achievement.
    • Tip 2: Align the components of the school plan and process.
    • Tip 3: Allow sufficient time for a deep and rich understanding of the data before improvement strategies are decided upon by team members.
    • Tip 4: Structure the distinct stages of improvement team conversations that accompany the school planning process.
    • Tip 5: The language used in team discussions matters. Ensure that school improvement team leaders follow a carefully designed process of data-driven conversations.
    • Tip 6: Include only a few powerful strategies to be implemented at a time in a school improvement plan.
    • Tip 7: Describe the identified strategies and activities as completely and specifically as possible in the school plan.

Nancy Protheroe explains in her article,  Leadership for School Improvement, that the “five areas [of school improvement] are not a chronology of what a principal must do first, second, and third, but rather are cyclical in nature and must be demonstrated continuously throughout the school improvement process” (Seremet et al. undated). Those five areas are:

    • “Promoting collaborative problem-solving and open communication;
    • Collecting, analyzing, and using data to identify school needs;Using data to identify and plan for needed changes in the instructional program;
    • Implementing and monitoring the school improvement plan; and
    • Using systems thinking to establish a clear focus on attaining student achievement goals” (Seremet et al. undated).
Leadership and the School Vision