Tips from School Improvement Leaders

Tips from School Improvement Leaders

"As project director for the MDK12 school improvement website, I have enjoyed observing, talking, and working with school leaders around the state. As a result, I have learned a lot about how leadership teams function, what barriers they identify to improving student achievement, and what strategies they have found that work.

I have observed that schools appear to be challenged by two major barriers:

    * Too many demands and too little time to meet all of them
    * Too many priorities and too little clarity on where schools should focus efforts

There is no question that there are an exorbitant number of demands made on schools, probably felt most keenly by principals. There’s no question that principals (as well as teachers) who try to meet those many demands often feel tired, confused, and fragmented. So how do effective principals focus their school on improvement efforts?

When a principal takes his/her staff through the data analysis process, comes out of that process with clear school improvement objectives and a game plan for attaining them, collects data to monitor progress toward those objectives, and aligns time and staff development resources, then the school staff has a clear idea about how they should prioritize their efforts.

This aligned school improvement system is exactly what schools need. They need to clearly focus their limited resources, particularly time, around priority objectives and to monitor regularly what strategies are working and eliminate strategies that aren’t.

When principals buy into the premise that the school improvement process should drive the school’s resources and activities, then the following tips will probably be self-evident. These tips are directed to principals and team leaders, the people most responsible for providing leadership for improving student achievement."