Lessons Learned from Recommendations and District Improvement Initiativ

           By being involved with improvement initiatives it gave me valuable lessons I can apply in any future position I have in education. I learned there are important steps to take to developing improvement initiatives in the district. The first step is to start with the concerns of the district by examining trends. Then develop recommendations that are aligned with district goals. Then have a way of evaluating progress on those initiatives.

            The first step the district improvement committee took was examining current trends in our district. This allowed the committee to understand the true needs of the district. In the past few years, due to the lay-offs at NASA and the general economy, there has been an increase in the number of students who are economically disadvantaged. This year the district went from having three Title I campuses to nine. In addition to the increase of students who are economically disadvantaged we have also had in an increase in students who are Limited English Proficient. One of the other trends the committee noticed was decrease in parent participation at some of the campuses.

Based on the current trends and needs of the district the District Improvement Committee then  developed recommendations to address the needs of district that were aligned with the district mission and goals. The first recommendation was to develop, lead and implement a robust parent and community involvement program which will provide opportunities for all parents to participate in activities as a partner in their child’s educational process. The next recommendation after analyzing the current trends was to ensure that staff will be members of a professional learning community and will continue to improve and reflect on their practice.  Then based on the increase in special populations in the district the next recommendation was to provide students identified as needing support through Limited English Proficient, At-Risk, or Dyslexia, Special Education Programs with research-based instructional strategies, intervention, programs and services that are designed to accelerate their language acquisition and improve their academic achievement.

Then the next step in developing improvement initiatives is to develop evaluation methods to evaluate progress and improvement of the initiatives. For the three recommended initiatives the committee developed the following recommendations for evaluation criteria: Use the results of Parent Involvement Survey and parent attendance logs at each activity, agendas of professional learning community meetings, surveys after professional development, records of book studies, work products and lesson plans. Also, the committee recommended using student assessment results.