Six Steps to School

Improvement
 Schools that want to renew themselves often dive
right into developing an action plan for school
improvement. Kathleen Fitzpatrick outlined a six-part
framework for school improvement planning based
into research on high performing schools. Developing
an action plan comes late in the process, she noted, not
at the beginning.
 A. Develop a school profile, establishing
a baseline
Schools should be sure to collect and analyze data in at least
four categories: student performance, student and community
characteristics, school characteristics, and stakeholder
perspectives.
B. Educators define the school’s beliefs
and mission
They must answer the questions, what do we believe about teaching
and learning? And What is the primary purpose of our school’?Schools
sometimes define a mission merely “as an exercise”, Fitzpatrick said , but
to be useful, the beliefs and mission must be “vibrant” and serves as “a
decision screen”.
C. Define desired results for student
learning
Educators at the school must determine
with precision what they expect students to
know and be able to do as a result of their
learning. Also, the educators must set
priorities for improving student learning.
D. Determine how the school’s instructional practices and
conditions help or hinder achievement of the mission and
desired results for student learning

In this phase, educators move from

reflecting on student work to reflecting
on their own work: their curriculum,
instructional strategies, assessment
practices, professional development, and
so on.
E. Developing the action plan

 E. Developing the action plan

 When deciding on action steps, educators should identify research-based strategies for
improvement. The educators must also set a time line, identify resources, assign
responsibilities for implementing the plan, and develop ways to evaluate the plan’s
effectiveness.
Implement the plan and document
results
Educators at the school must decide what
measures they will use to assess the
effectiveness of the plan in terms of growth
in student learning.