“School Improvement Plans” announced our principal, an enthusiastic young administrator. That will be the focus of our next staff development day! Oh boy, I thought- that’s just exactly what we wanted to hear. I’ll bet we get to come up with yet another fantastic “all school vision” and maybe a mission statement too! My mind drifted back to our last lackluster vision statement. . . something about “quality education in a safe environment blah, blah, blah.”
Each year we are required to develop a school improvement plan and each year it seems less exciting. Google “school improvement plans” and you’ll bring up hundreds of sites with hundreds of schools all striving to improve teaching and learning. Many of the plans include step-by-step “toolkits” for creating school improvement plans. I thought the Fife School District published a great explanation of what the plans should do.
"These plans include goals designed to improve student achievement along with the steps necessary to accomplish these goals. Led by the building principal, the process of developing each School Improvement Plan includes the input and involvement of many building and district staff."
Even with a great mission statement and the obvious proof of all the hard work and dedication that went into developing these plans I wondered silently, when did any of those busy-work nonsense items ever actually change anything we really do? When did those lofty, (not to mention wordy) ideas ever get translated into a reality that students might profit from? When?
Well, maybe this time. . . I’m an optimistic person so I settled down to listen as our fresh young leader continued to outline his hopes for this building. While I was intently listening I caught a little whiff of his genuine investment in the lives of students and staff. As he talked about his ideas and created openings for input from all of us who were gathered in the room, I began to change my mind about the process.
If the vision is one that I’m really invested in and if it really does inspire all of us to be the best teachers that we can be, in the best school that we can imagine, with the greatest students that our community has ever seen, then sign me up! I’m inclined to think that perhaps the opportunity to create a new vision that could be translated into real life would truly be worth my investment.
It’s amazing how these things happen- one minute we’re on the outside looking in and the next thing we know we’re right in the middle of an exciting change! So now I’ve done a complete one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and I’ve signed on to be a member of the School Improvement Plan committee! I’m actually quite happy about it!
What will our vision be? What will our mission entail? Well, school improvement at the very least and perhaps real transformation with improved student achievement as just one of the many benefits!
Pamelia Valentine is a guest blogger and teacher in the Shelton School District.
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