Goal 1 – Improve Student Behavior In order to improve student behavior, we have recognized our deficit areas to be student values, personal responsibility and ethical decision-making. We have decided to implement various activities to address these concerns. We will create a committee of administrators, teachers, parents, and students to formulate values and decide on policies regarding behavior. Once our behavior expectations have been established, we expect that our staff, students, and parents will adhere to the policies in place. We believe the responsibility for behavior modification lies primarily within our students, who must have the support of their parents, school administration, and teachers.
Students will share values Our first objective for our student’s is that they will share positive values. We plan on teaching values through a variety of activities. Team building activities designed by the students to create school-wide rules and expectations will be our first priority. As a follow up activity, students will create and design school-wide positive behavior posters to encourage the use of the newly formed shared value behavior plan. Finally, students will be expected to complete 100 hours of community service to graduate in an effort to foster community relations.. We believe that by getting our faculty and parents to support these shared values, our students will be successful, productive citizens.
Students will demonstrate personal responsibility Our second objective for our students is to promote personal responsibility. In order to accomplish this, students will be expected to be responsible for their education through the support of administration, teachers, parents and counselors. Students will show responsibility by taking an active role in creating their next year’s schedule which will be discussed, reviewed, and finalized by their counselor. Students will also be held accountable for maintaining a GPA of 2.0 to remain eligible for sports. In addition, students will participate in peer mentoring sessions to promote their improved student behavior. We feel that teaching our students personal responsibility will promote a sense of community among them as well as our faculty, administration, and parents.
Students will exercise ethical decision-making Our third objective for improving student behavior is to influence our students to make ethical decisions. Our students will practice making ethical decisions for the school by participating in student government either by holding an elected position or simply by being an active voter. Another way that they will practice ethical decision-making is by regularly attending school. Lastly, our students will demonstrate pride in their campus by involving themselves in a green effort to keep it clean. We believe that by improving ethical decision-making skills in our students, we will help them become first class citizens.
Goal 2 – Improve Student Writing Our writing scores have dropped to an all time low of 66% proficient or higher. Our focus will be on encouraging multiple avenues of student writing and publishing student work regularly. We will do this by helping students to communicate ideas effectively, increase usage of vocabulary, and learning how to publish written work. We will create a writing leadership team, consisting of administrators, teachers, parents, and students, to develop school wide goals and activities for the year. Once our writing goals and activities are implemented, we believe that our students will become more successful writers.
Students will communicate ideas effectively in writing Our first objective for improving student writing is educating our students to communicate their ideas effectively through writing. We plan to encourage this through school-wide creative writing contests, seeking out scholarships for creative writing, and sponsoring a creative writing night for our students to showcase their work. We believe that teaching students to communicate their ideas effectively in writing is an integral part to their future writing success. Students will increase usage of vocabulary in writing Our second objective for improving student writing is to promote proper usage of sophisticated vocabulary. We will accomplish this by exposing our students to advanced vocabulary words of the week that will be advertised on morning announcements and our school website, creating a vocabulary blog for students to interact with the vocabulary, and by having teachers offer incentives for demonstrating proper usage of newly acquired vocabulary words. We feel that this acquisition of sophisticated vocabulary will prove to be invaluable in achieving future writing success. Students will learn how to publish written works Our third objective for improving student writing is to encourage the publishing of written work. The hope of the leadership team is that students will publish work to be showcased at an authors and poet’s night, write articles about school events for the local newspaper, and create digital storybooks to share with local elementary school children. Overall, students publishing written work will increase writing skills through the editing process and self-reflection they will exhibit when displaying their writing.
Goal 3 – Improve Student Reading While our reading scores have improved, they are still at an unacceptable level of 42% proficient or higher. Our objectives for improving reading are increasing comprehension, recognizing purpose of text, and relating ideas from text to prior knowledge experiences. Our reading leadership team, consisting of administrators, teachers, parents, and students, will develop school wide goals and activities for the year geared to elevate our students’ current reading skills. As soon as our reading goals and activities have come to fruition, we believe that we will foster in our students a general love for reading.
Students will increase reading comprehension skills Our first objective is to increase reading comprehension skills. We plan to accomplish this by having our teachers engage students in multiple recall activities designed to test for comprehension of a given text. Through these activities we should see a marked improvement in reading comprehension skills. Additionally, we plan to implement the use of Reading Plus, a web based program proven to increase reading fluency and comprehension. Finally, our school will participate in a school wide cross-curricular Continuous Improvement Model that calls for mini comprehension lessons at the beginning of each period daily and to be followed up with a mini comprehension assessment at the end of each week. We believe these efforts will aid in the development of reading comprehension skills school wide and that our students will be more successful on their next formal reading assessment. Students will recognize purpose of text Our second objective to improve student reading is to help students recognize purpose of text. We will do this by teaching our students to analyze different written work, to use Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast a variety of writing styles, and to participate in Literature Circles to explore and share a variety of genres. With the implementation of these activities, our students will increase proficiency in identifying purpose of text and thus improve overall reading. Students will be able to relate ideas from text to prior knowledge and experiences Our third objective to improve student reading is to teach our students the benefit of making connections to prior knowledge as they read. By using thinking maps for weekly lessons, utilizing 21st century learning projects, and hosting a cultural family night to kick off a unit on cultural diversity, we believe that our students will become proficient in using background knowledge. Having parents participate in the education process will help students make the connection between home experiences and school learning. Improvement plan visibility The process for developing the school improvement plan will have a high degree of visibility and be seen as an open process. Parents are involved in planning, as part of the leadership teams created to develop goals and activities. They are active participants during the planning and implementation process of the school improvement plan. In addition, parent involvement is encouraged and welcomed during the implementation process and in the activities throughout the year. Parents are encouraged to show support for their students at school sponsored family events to celebrate literacy including the Authors and Poet night, Creative Writing Showcase and the Cultural Family night. Finally, parent participation is encouraged in the support of improving student behavior. We have included our parents in actively supporting our students shared values, demonstrating personal responsibility, and ethical decision-making. Overall, the process will be transparent and participation of all stakeholders will be imperative to the success of the program. Reflective Statement This assignment has provided our leadership team with an opportunity to understand the steps needed in collaboratively developing a school improvement plan. It is necessary for savvy leadership to evaluate the diverse factors that affect a school's success. A savvy leader will create a leadership team to assist in evaluating current data and developing goals and strategies to influence student achievement. This savvy leadership team will then incorporate the entire Professional Learning Community to aid in the implementation of the school improvement plan.
In order to improve student behavior, we have recognized our deficit areas to be student values, personal responsibility and ethical decision-making. We have decided to implement various activities to address these concerns. We will create a committee of administrators, teachers, parents, and students to formulate values and decide on policies regarding behavior. Once our behavior expectations have been established, we expect that our staff, students, and parents will adhere to the policies in place. We believe the responsibility for behavior modification lies primarily within our students, who must have the support of their parents, school administration, and teachers.
Students will share values
Our first objective for our student’s is that they will share positive values. We plan on teaching values through a variety of activities. Team building activities designed by the students to create school-wide rules and expectations will be our first priority. As a follow up activity, students will create and design school-wide positive behavior posters to encourage the use of the newly formed shared value behavior plan. Finally, students will be expected to complete 100 hours of community service to graduate in an effort to foster community relations.. We believe that by getting our faculty and parents to support these shared values, our students will be successful, productive citizens.
Students will demonstrate personal responsibility
Our second objective for our students is to promote personal responsibility. In order to accomplish this, students will be expected to be responsible for their education through the support of administration, teachers, parents and counselors. Students will show responsibility by taking an active role in creating their next year’s schedule which will be discussed, reviewed, and finalized by their counselor. Students will also be held accountable for maintaining a GPA of 2.0 to remain eligible for sports. In addition, students will participate in peer mentoring sessions to promote their improved student behavior. We feel that teaching our students personal responsibility will promote a sense of community among them as well as our faculty, administration, and parents.
Students will exercise ethical decision-making
Our third objective for improving student behavior is to influence our students to make ethical decisions. Our students will practice making ethical decisions for the school by participating in student government either by holding an elected position or simply by being an active voter. Another way that they will practice ethical decision-making is by regularly attending school. Lastly, our students will demonstrate pride in their campus by involving themselves in a green effort to keep it clean. We believe that by improving ethical decision-making skills in our students, we will help them become first class citizens.
Goal 2 – Improve Student Writing
Our writing scores have dropped to an all time low of 66% proficient or higher. Our focus will be on encouraging multiple avenues of student writing and publishing student work regularly. We will do this by helping students to communicate ideas effectively, increase usage of vocabulary, and learning how to publish written work. We will create a writing leadership team, consisting of administrators, teachers, parents, and students, to develop school wide goals and activities for the year. Once our writing goals and activities are implemented, we believe that our students will become more successful writers.
Students will communicate ideas effectively in writing
Our first objective for improving student writing is educating our students to communicate their ideas effectively through writing. We plan to encourage this through school-wide creative writing contests, seeking out scholarships for creative writing, and sponsoring a creative writing night for our students to showcase their work. We believe that teaching students to communicate their ideas effectively in writing is an integral part to their future writing success.
Students will increase usage of vocabulary in writing
Our second objective for improving student writing is to promote proper usage of sophisticated vocabulary. We will accomplish this by exposing our students to advanced vocabulary words of the week that will be advertised on morning announcements and our school website, creating a vocabulary blog for students to interact with the vocabulary, and by having teachers offer incentives for demonstrating proper usage of newly acquired vocabulary words. We feel that this acquisition of sophisticated vocabulary will prove to be invaluable in achieving future writing success.
Students will learn how to publish written works
Our third objective for improving student writing is to encourage the publishing of written work. The hope of the leadership team is that students will publish work to be showcased at an authors and poet’s night, write articles about school events for the local newspaper, and create digital storybooks to share with local elementary school children. Overall, students publishing written work will increase writing skills through the editing process and self-reflection they will exhibit when displaying their writing.
Goal 3 – Improve Student Reading
While our reading scores have improved, they are still at an unacceptable level of 42% proficient or higher. Our objectives for improving reading are increasing comprehension, recognizing purpose of text, and relating ideas from text to prior knowledge experiences. Our reading leadership team, consisting of administrators, teachers, parents, and students, will develop school wide goals and activities for the year geared to elevate our students’ current reading skills. As soon as our reading goals and activities have come to fruition, we believe that we will foster in our students a general love for reading.
Students will increase reading comprehension skills
Our first objective is to increase reading comprehension skills. We plan to accomplish this by having our teachers engage students in multiple recall activities designed to test for comprehension of a given text. Through these activities we should see a marked improvement in reading comprehension skills. Additionally, we plan to implement the use of Reading Plus, a web based program proven to increase reading fluency and comprehension. Finally, our school will participate in a school wide cross-curricular Continuous Improvement Model that calls for mini comprehension lessons at the beginning of each period daily and to be followed up with a mini comprehension assessment at the end of each week. We believe these efforts will aid in the development of reading comprehension skills school wide and that our students will be more successful on their next formal reading assessment.
Students will recognize purpose of text
Our second objective to improve student reading is to help students recognize purpose of text. We will do this by teaching our students to analyze different written work, to use Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast a variety of writing styles, and to participate in Literature Circles to explore and share a variety of genres. With the implementation of these activities, our students will increase proficiency in identifying purpose of text and thus improve overall reading.
Students will be able to relate ideas from text to prior knowledge and experiences
Our third objective to improve student reading is to teach our students the benefit of making connections to prior knowledge as they read. By using thinking maps for weekly lessons, utilizing 21st century learning projects, and hosting a cultural family night to kick off a unit on cultural diversity, we believe that our students will become proficient in using background knowledge. Having parents participate in the education process will help students make the connection between home experiences and school learning.
Improvement plan visibility
The process for developing the school improvement plan will have a high degree of visibility and be seen as an open process. Parents are involved in planning, as part of the leadership teams created to develop goals and activities. They are active participants during the planning and implementation process of the school improvement plan. In addition, parent involvement is encouraged and welcomed during the implementation process and in the activities throughout the year. Parents are encouraged to show support for their students at school sponsored family events to celebrate literacy including the Authors and Poet night, Creative Writing Showcase and the Cultural Family night. Finally, parent participation is encouraged in the support of improving student behavior. We have included our parents in actively supporting our students shared values, demonstrating personal responsibility, and ethical decision-making. Overall, the process will be transparent and participation of all stakeholders will be imperative to the success of the program.
Reflective Statement
This assignment has provided our leadership team with an opportunity to understand the steps needed in collaboratively developing a school improvement plan. It is necessary for savvy leadership to evaluate the diverse factors that affect a school's success. A savvy leader will create a leadership team to assist in evaluating current data and developing goals and strategies to influence student achievement. This savvy leadership team will then incorporate the entire Professional Learning Community to aid in the implementation of the school improvement plan.