Evaluating the School Improvement Plan

 

Introduction: Interviewees & Highlights

               The first interviewee is Marceil Skluzacek. Marceil is an eighth grade Math teacher and has been teaching for thirty years—she’s also been teaching at the same middle school her whole career. The second participant is Emily Mueller who is a seventh grade ELA teacher. Emily has been teaching for fourteen years—she started her career in Iowa and has been teaching at her current school for five years. The most pertinent points the interviewees made were:

• -        Will there be professional learning about how goal one can be supported across content areas?
• -        Will the data for the student behavior goal be divided into categories; for instance, splitting office referrals across grades.
• -        The SIP is diverse and connects with a lot of various categories.

Summary of Interview Findings

            The first point made was questioning about if there was going to be professional learning about how goal one can be supported across content areas. This was a great point brought up by Marceil. It would be beneficial to use 30 minutes of one of the scheduled data days during the school year to show teachers supports they can use in the classroom to help their students with literacy. Marceil stated that if the PD occurred, then the first goal would be effective. Emily brought up a good point about how to organize the data with the behavior goal. That would also be an amendment to the SIP: to organize the data to show the different student identities.

            Marceil and Emily both commented on how they appreciated that the SIP was diverse in the categories it was addressing: reading, math, student behavior, and technology use. They also thought that all the goals were appropriate for a middle school audience as well as attainable. Marceil mentioned that one thing she has appreciated about the middle school is that no matter what principal has been leading, that each one has valued growth so there has been a lot of growth in her thirty years there.

Conclusion: Teacher Leader Recommendations and Action Steps

            I like the definition that Trust and Horrocks write, “Leaders support and motivate members, share resources, enact governance structures, facilitate discussions and serve as role models” (Jones and Preece, 2006 as cited in Trust and Horrocks, 2019). In communities of practice like my collaborative middle school, I see my role as motivating members and sharing resources. In the SIP, I can take the lead in creating and sharing resources for staff to be prepared for what is being asked of them. Marceil and Emily helped to develop the SIP further and provided helpful insight that helped to improve it. The next steps I need to take are:

• -        Create a professional development opportunity to help various content teachers with literacy instruction in their classroom.
• -        Specify in SIP that student behavior data will be categorized into various student identities.

 

 

References        

Trust, T., & Horrocks, B. (2019). Six Key Elements Identified in an Active and Thriving Blended Community of Practice. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 63(2), 108–115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0265-x