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Implementing a School Improvement plan is hard work and most educators don’t have formal training or the systems in place for implementing an improvement plan. Add to this the fact that, for at risk schools there is a ticking clock at play and pressures can amplify quickly<\/p>\n
Once your school or district has a School Improvement plan, you need a progress management system to meaningfully and effectively implement the plan.<\/p>\n
Specifically designed for School Improvement, progress management software can empower a school to reach the student outcomes the plan is designed to improve by:\u00a0<\/p>\n
This article and videos will review some of the challenges of implementing a School Improvement plan, explain why home grown tools or standard project management software are not enough, and discuss the benefits of using school improvement tools built by educators and designed specifically for educators.<\/p>\n
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To create a school improvement plan you and your team need to invest your resources, time, passion and political capital. It’s also very likely that you’ve engaged with outside experts and partners to help create your plan.<\/p>\n
But creating a plan isn’t enough. Improvement plans fall short because the essential link between planning, implementation and student outcomes is broken. What do we mean by this? Well, as educators, we’re really good about setting goals and we’re getting better about defining the strategies that we use in service of those goals, but then school happens.<\/p>\n
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The realities of life in a district or a school takeover and the connection between educator efforts and student impacts break. We find ourselves at the end of the semester of the year looking back and trying to work out what parts of the improvement plan were implemented, what parts were not, and what impact any of it had on our students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Historically, schools and districts have used Student Information Systems to get important insight into their student outcomes.\u00a0 And some schools have tried using project management or other productivity tools to track their educational practices.\u00a0 But working in separate systems makes it very difficult to understand how specific educational practices and actions are actually impacting student outcomes.\u00a0 You can see the outcomes but the actions you are taking and the outcomes aren’t connected in real time. \u00a0<\/p>\n Some districts have spent large amounts of staff time building and maintaining their own homegrown progress management tools, usually combining spreadsheets and document sharing software. In rare cases these custom built tools and solutions may let leadership teams compare some actions and progress indicators in their improvement plans but these homegrown systems are:<\/p>\n Manual, non-real-time, solutions with data spread across multiple systems reduces educator effectiveness and has a negative impact on student outcomes:<\/p>\n The work of school improvement is incredibly difficult.\u00a0 Without a systematic performance and progress management approach you risk frustration and inefficiency which can ultimately lead to the improvement plan just not happening.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Changing student outcomes requires changes to educator inputs. Successful school improvement requires you to systematically implement your plan because simply put – if nothing changes, nothing changes.<\/p>\n A progress management solution empowers you to set clear expectations and focus all of your stakeholders on the same goals.\u00a0 This allows your team to create action plans in a safe and supportive environment with actionable real-time data in custom reports for all of your stakeholders.<\/p>\n The first step is getting your plan off the written page and into a system.\u00a0 Flipping through a large document to understand the plan takes time and effort that most of your staff does not have to spare.\u00a0 A progress management system allows your team to access the parts of the improvement plan that are most relevant to them.<\/p>\n Once your staff has access to their specific areas of your Improvement Plan in RespondAbility it\u2019s easy for them to understand what goals, targets and specific tasks they are responsible for and on what timeline.\u00a0 Most importantly they understand how their actions are tied to the goals of the School Improvement Plan.<\/p>\n A progress management system makes it easy to report on progress.\u00a0 Using RespondAbility reporting takes each individual about 4 minutes a week.\u00a0 This quick and frequent reporting has the added advantage of turning meetings into problem solving events, instead of reporting events where problem solving cannot happen because of time constraints.<\/p>\n Real time dashboards and reports help teams and leadership to consistently monitor the plan, analyze the impact the plan is having and then identify course corrections so that the improvement plan has the desired impact on student outcomes.<\/p>\n Once leadership sets clear expectations with their teams reporting can be automated.\u00a0 With all the data tied together in real time you can also use metrics to understand what actions are having an impact on student outcomes and what actions are not.\u00a0\u00a0 This means leadership can focus their time, support and additional resources where they can have the greatest learning impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the logistics of reporting and compliance minimized and everyone focused on student outcomes you can foster an environment which can celebrate successes and address challenges with a shared and aligned sense of purpose.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_code _builder_version=”3.29.3″ text_orientation=”center” z_index_tablet=”500″]The Challenges <\/strong>to Past Approaches<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
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How Does <\/strong>a Progress Management System Make Your Staff More Effective<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
Gets your plan into a system th<\/strong>at everyone can see<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Sets clear expectations and goals<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Make reporting easy and effective for your team\u00a0 <\/strong><\/h3>\n
Smarter decision making with real time visibility <\/strong><\/h3>\n
Allows leadership to support staff where necessary<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Build a collaborative culture <\/strong><\/h3>\n
Summary<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n