How To Improve A School

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Accreditation and School Improvement Policy Handbook

Purpose of this Document...1

AdvancED Accreditation...1

AdvancED Standards...2

School Improvement Leadership...3

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Purpose and Direction...4

School Improvement Timeline...5

District Profile ...7

Setting Goals and Interventions...7

Implementation of the Plan...8

Evaluation of the Plan...8

AdvancED ASSIST Program...9

Commitment to Continuous Improvement 9

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The Purpose of This Document

Strive • Commit • Succeed

Those words are the mission of Schuyler Community Schools. This document will provide a structure to the school improvement and accreditation activities of Schuyler Community Schools in order to help us live up to the standards of those words. The pages that follow will also serve as a guide to maintain a continuous improvement process throughout the district.

What is AdvancED Accreditation?

In the state of Nebraska, all public school districts that provide elementary and/or secondary instruction to children of compulsory attendance age are required to be accredited according to the Nebraska Department of Education’s Rule 10. Accredited school systems are also considered to be approved for legal operation for purposes of state law. School accreditation began in 1895 as a way to evaluate and elevate school quality. Schuyler High School was first accredited by the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA CASI) in 1914.

Schuyler Community Schools currently maintains accreditation through AdvancED.

AdvancED is a worldwide school accrediting agency that was formed in 2006 with the unification of NCA, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement and the Northwest Accreditation Commission.

Together, these divisions created a protocol that is a clear and comprehensive program of evaluation and external review supported by research-based standards and dedicated to helping schools, districts and education agencies continuously improve.

Through whatever lens school improvement is viewed, there is wide agreement that the foundational meaning of school improvement challenges educators to commit to

continuously push beyond the line of current competence, to frame and ask new and deeper questions, and to see more than the completion of a management plan.

AdvancED’s commitment to school improvement is evidenced by its use of a research-based set of standards and a clearly defined structure for evaluating the extent to which a school district needs to implement improvement measures. The AdvancED Accreditation Protocol provides guidance and support with continuous improvement efforts to education institutions around the world. Continuous improvement is at the heart of accreditation. Their approach is a formalized, disciplined process for taking on the complexity of improvement. The

strategies embedded in the steps to accreditation are, in and of themselves, essential to ensuring improvement.

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Schuyler Community Schools ~ Accreditation and School Improvement Policy Handbook

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Schuyler Community Schools joins thousands of schools and districts worldwide and submits to an accreditation process that involves:

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Thorough self-analysis using the five AdvancED Standards for Quality

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Comprehensive peer review that provides both commendations and required actions for improvement

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Commitment to continuous improvement by monitoring and evaluating efforts on a yearly basis

By engaging in accreditation a school will move beyond the internal and isolated discussions about school improvement, and submit their educational environment to a rigorous process of analysis and evaluation. And though school improvement is a formal, disciplined structure of continuous monitoring, evaluation, and adjustments, it is the tireless dedication of educators and administrators to the continuous improvement of Schuyler Community Schools that leads to true organizational effectiveness.

AdvancED Standards for Quality School Systems

The AdvancED Accreditation Protocol evaluates school systems on five standards. These standards identify how well school systems operate as a whole.

Standard 1: Purpose and Direction

The system maintains and communicates at all levels of the organization a purpose and direction for continuous improvement that commit to high expectations for learning as well as shared values and beliefs about teaching and learning.

Standard 2: Governance and Leadership

The system operates under governance and leadership that promote and support student performance and school effectiveness.

Standard 3: Teaching and Assessing for Learning

The system’s curriculum, instructional design, and assessment practices guide and ensure teacher effectiveness and student learning across all grades and courses.

Standard 4: Resources and Support Systems

The system has resources and provides services in all schools that support its purpose and direction to ensure success for all students.

Standard 5: Using Results for Continuous Improvement

The system implements a comprehensive assessment system that generates a range of data about student learning and system effectiveness and uses the results to guide continuous improvement.

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School Improvement Leadership

District Leadership

The district’s Curriculum/School Improvement Coordinator will have primary responsibility for leading, coordinating and monitoring the accreditation and school improvement process.

The coordinator’s duties include but are not limited to, being chair of the district-wide steering committee, maintaining the district profile, maintaining district-wide data, ensuring all AdvancED reports are completed and ensuring that all sections of the ASSIST online AdvancED forms are properly done. External visits will be coordinated by the coordinator.

The coordinator will also maintain the school improvement budget and ensure that the school improvement process and plans are being communicated with all stakeholders.

District Steering Committee

The District Steering Committee is central to the continuous improvement process. This is the group that organizes and coordinates all improvement activities. This committee consists of the District School Improvement Coordinator, Superintendent of Schools, principal of each building, chair or co-chair of each building school improvement steering committee and a parent/community liaison. Members of the school board curriculum committee will also be invited. If available, the administrative assistant to the District School Improvement

Coordinator will serve as the secretary of the District Steering Committee.

In order to provide opportunity for continuous monitoring of progress and guidance, the following meeting schedule is established:

 The committee shall meet a minimum of once a month during the school year for the purpose of coordinating school improvement work.

 The committee will meet at the beginning of August, prior to the beginning of the school year to coordinate activities for the next school year.

 Monthly meeting dates shall be established for the school year at the beginning of the school year by the Schuyler Area Administrators.

 Special meetings may be called as needed by the chairperson.

 Minutes of the meetings shall be forwarded to all staff and school board. They will also be published on the School Improvement page of the SCS website.

Building Leadership

Each building will have a school improvement steering committee. The committee will be

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led by a teacher who will act as chairperson or two teachers who will act as co-chairs. These co-chairs will be in charge of the building steering committee meetings. The chair or co- chairs will serve as building representatives to the District Steering Committee. Building administrators are also instrumental in the improvement process and must be involved to guide the steering committee.

Building Committee Structure

Each building will have a building steering committee and target area goal committees for each district goal. The chair of the target area goal committee will automatically be a

member of the building steering committee. The building steering committee should consist of approximately six to twelve members, not including administrators or counselors. In order to coordinate and communicate throughout the school, the building steering committee will also consist of members of other committees as determined by the needs of the school. These additional committees may include but are not limited to Title 1, RtI, SAT, ILCD, and

Curriculum Committees. Other members may be included as needed according to the needs of the individual school. For example, Schuyler Elementary should work within this

structure but also try to have a member from as many different grade levels as possible. The steering committee should also have at least one parent representative who is not also a staff member.

The target area goal committee will have a chair or co-chairs. Assuming that there are multiple academic goals for the district. Each certified staff member shall be assigned to one target area goal. For example, if the district has created school improvement goals for reading, writing and math, each teacher will either be on the reading target area goal committee, the writing target area goal committee or the math target area goal committee.

Where applicable, these committees should also have parent and student representation.

Richland, Fisher’s 24 and 4R schools are exempt from this structure. Those schools will have one teacher who will serve as their school improvement coordinator and will report back to and work with the entire staff at their school. This school improvement coordinator for each of these buildings also serves on the district steering committee.

Purpose and Direction

Beginning with the 2011 – 2012 school year, a thorough re-writing of the district’s belief statements, mission statement and vision statement will take place every five years. All faculty and staff will have input on this activity. Other stakeholder groups such as student, parents and other community members will have the opportunity to have input on our purpose and direction. On a yearly basis, each school’s steering committee shall review the belief, mission and vision statements in order to discuss how they are actualizing each of these statements and to determine if they see minor changes that need to be made.

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Schuyler Community Schools School Improvement Timeline

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District Profile

A profile of the district will be maintained and updated on a yearly basis by the Curriculum and School Improvement Office. Copies of the profile will be placed in a teacher workroom area of every school. The district profile will also be available on the district website. The profile will contain:

 A description the community of Schuyler and surrounding areas.

 A description of the school district that includes demographic information.

 A description of the Mission, Vision and Belief statements.

 District wide comprehensive school improvement plans.

 Demographic description of each school.

 Parent, student and staff surveys.

 Specific belief statements for each school.

 Specific action plans for each school.

 Data demonstrating the need for the interventions and the success or failure of the interventions.

Setting Goals and Interventions

Schuyler Community Schools will maintain two types of goals, student performance goals and learning opportunity goals. While the school board has the ultimate authority to accept or reject all goals and improvement plans, for this policy, student performance goals will be the responsibility of the district steering committee while learning opportunity goals will be selected and implemented under the direction of the school board and administration.

Student performance goals are intended to increase student achievement. These goals are to be student learning-centered, begin with, “All students…” and will be written in the active voice.

For example:

 All students will improve reading and writing proficiency.

 All students will improve mathematics proficiency.

Learning opportunity goals are written to improve or increase the opportunity or potential for improved learning. While not directly student centered, these goals must at least be able to tie into student learning. These goals would include such ideas as updating curriculum, improving facilities or involving parents.

Goal Setting Process

In order to write student performance goals, the steering committee and staff will analyze the data in the school profile to determine areas of need. The data analysis process should identify the challenging areas that the district needs to work on and demonstrate the most

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critical areas of need. The steering committee will be responsible for converting these critical areas into school improvement goals. The school board and administration will take the responsibility for writing the learning opportunity goals.

A timeline for each goal shall be established. The length of the time needed for an

improvement goal will vary depending on the complexity of that goal. The timeline shall be set according to the amount of time the steering committee believes is necessary to fully, design, implement and monitor the goal.

Intervention strategies to carry out the goal will be decided upon at the district steering committee level and will be implemented as a district. Any stakeholder group (board, administration, certified staff, classified staff, parents, patrons, students, etc.) may suggest strategies to the district steering committee, but it will be the final responsibility of the district steering committee to decide whether or not to include that strategy.

Implementation Strategies and Action Steps

It will be up to the building level teams to research and develop implementation strategies. It is important to do research in order to be sure we fully understand how the strategy works and it reduces the temptation to quickly jump into a strategy without fully studying the impact of that strategy. Building level teams will develop the strategies, decide who will be responsible for carrying out the strategy, determine the time-line for implementing it, and decide how the effectiveness of the strategy will be evaluated.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Plan

The building level team will decide which data sources (preferably three) will be used to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the plan. The data sources must be specific to the goal and able to me monitored on a consistent basis. This data can include but is not limited to student performance data, observation data, perceptual data, attendance data, and

discipline data.

In May of every year, the building level steering committees will evaluate the plan to

determine how effectively the action plan is being implemented. Questions to consider might include the following:

1. Targeted population. Is the target group of students identified in the action plan actually being served?

2. Interventions. Are the interventions being implemented as recommended and planned? To what degree are staff carrying out their roles in the implementation?

3. Timeframe. Are interventions implemented when outlined in the action plan? When necessary, are timelines adjusted to assure better implementation?

4. Actions. Are the actions included in the action plan being implemented in the way that was specified in the plan?

5. Responsibilities. Are those who have a role in taking action doing their part to

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successfully accomplish the action plan?

6. Monitoring. Are collection and review of the evidence of completion of actions and feedback taking place as specified in the plan?

7. Resources. Are the human, technology, and financial resources being deployed as needed and specified in the action plan?

ASSIST

The AdvancED Adaptive System of School Improvement Support Tools (ASSIST) is a state- of-the-art system that allows schools to streamline and enhance their efforts to boost student achievement. The ASSIST tool must be completed at the district level and for each building in the district. It will be the responsibility of the building level chair or co-chair to see that the Executive Summary is completed or updated by May 31^st of each school year. The District Coordinator will combine these reports into one report for the district within 30 days of receiving the final school level Executive Report. It will be the responsibility of the District Coordinator to make sure that the building teams complete all other ASSIST reports in a timely manner. The District Coordinator or his/her designee will complete all district level reports.

Commitment to Continuous Improvement

It is important that improvement efforts be systemic, sustained and fully imbedded into the culture of the school district. After the yearly evaluation process is complete and data has been studied, the building steering committee or the district steering committee will make decisions regarding the continued implementation of the plan. A report of the process will be delivered to the school board by the July board meeting.

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