Designing Our School

1. Designing Our School We are the creators! What we create will reflect what we believe about education and how we think a school is most effectively led and managed. * Values * Vision * Design

2. The Design Activity • Who: In design teams of three school leaders each. • Why: We have walked through two lists of effective instructional practices, and they are also provided in an accompanying document along with a third list. You can never have too many lists, right? We will now reveal the method to our madness. These lists will serve to inform you in setting a vision, formulating goals, and setting strategies and milestones to improve teaching and learning in your ideal school.

3. In real life, the exercise we are tackling now would be done over a considerable amount of time and involve lots of people with an interest in the school. But for practice, we will design our own schools in small groups, or at least some defining aspects of a school. • In this session, we will Set the Direction for our ideal school. In the next session, we will Operationalize the Direction.

4. Values – Vision – Design • We are the creators! What we create will reflect what we believe about education and how we think a school is most effectively led and managed.

5. Setting the Direction

6. A. Defining the School • School Name: • Age Range of Students: • Values: What key values do you expect to be exhibited in the behavior of school personnel as well as students? 5 to 8 values would be a reasonable number. • Vision: [In its ideal form, how would you want the school to be described by its stakeholders?] XXXX school . . . . . [in one sentence] • Mission: [What do you see as the primary purpose of the school? What will it do, in one sentence?] • School’s Most Unique Characteristics (Its Focus): [What sets this school apart from all the other similar schools? What will it be known for? What will be emphasized in every classroom and in all activities?]

7. B. Determining Goals for Students • Academic Goal 1 • Academic Goal 1: Each student will . . . [What is the goal for each student to achieve academically while at this school?] [Note: Quantitative markers are NOT included in the goal statement. They are in the Goal Performance Measure.] • Goal Performance Measure • Indicator: [What is one metric you will look at to give an idea if you are moving closer to achieving the goal? Often expressed in a percentage or a quantity. ] • Data Source: [Where will you find the data relative to the metric?] • Baseline: [Invent a baseline for the current year.] • Year 1 Target: [Project where you expect to be in one year.] • Strategy: [Select a practice from IES, CST, or ADI list on the accompanying document – Effective Practices - that will be key to your pursuit of the goal.]

8. Academic Goal 2 • Academic Goal 2: Each student will . . . [What is the goal for each student to achieve academically while at this school?] [Note: Quantitative markers are NOT included in the goal statement. They are in the Goal Performance Measure.] • Goal Performance Measure • Indicator: [What is one metric you will look at to give an idea if you are moving closer to achieving the goal? Often expressed in a percentage or a quantity. ] • Data Source: [Where will you find the data relative to the metric?] • Baseline: [Invent a baseline for the current year.] • Year 1 Target: [Project where you expect to be in one year.] • Strategy: [Select a practice from IES, CST, or ADI list on the accompanying document – Effective Practices - that will be key to your pursuit of the goal.]

9. 3. Personal Competency Goal 1 • Personal Competency Goal 1: Each student will . . . [What is the goal for each student to achieve personal competency while at this school?] [Note: Quantitative markers are NOT included in the goal statement. They are in the Goal Performance Measure.] • Goal Performance Measure • Indicator: [What is one metric you will look at to give an idea if you are moving closer to achieving the goal? Often expressed in a percentage or a quantity. ] • Data Source: [Where will you find the data relative to the metric?] • Baseline: [Invent a baseline for the current year.] • Year 1 Target: [Project where you expect to be in one year.] • Strategy: [Select a practice from the ADI list on the accompanying document– Effective Practices - that includes personal competencies that will be key to your pursuit of the goal.]

10. 4. Personal Competency Goal 2 • Personal Competency Goal 2: Each student will . . . [What is the goal for each student to achieve personal competency while at this school?] [Note: Quantitative markers are NOT included in the goal statement. They are in the Goal Performance Measure.] • Goal Performance Measure • Indicator: [What is one metric you will look at to give an idea if you are moving closer to achieving the goal? Often expressed in a percentage or a quantity. ] • Data Source: [Where will you find the data relative to the metric?] • Baseline: [Invent a baseline for the current year.] • Year 1 Target: [Project where you expect to be in one year.] • Strategy: [Select a practice from the ADI list on the accompanying document– Effective Practices - that includes personal competencies that will be key to your pursuit of the goal.]

11. Presentations and Discussion Presentation (5-10 minutes) • Present the school your team has designed • Use a Power Point, graphic, handout, or other tools Discussion (prompts for audience) (5 minutes) • What stands out as an innovative approach in this school’s design? • What does this design tell you about the underlying education philosophy of its creators? Questions & Answers (5 minutes)

12. Operationalizing the Direction

13. We have set the direction for our new school by describing the school and setting goals for its students. We have also selected a few strategies we will use to pursue the goals. • To operationalize the direction we have set for our school, we will construct milestones for each of the strategies. A milestone is a statement of what we will have accomplished in one year relative to the strategy. • To get more specific about our work toward a milestone, we will outline a couple actions that we would take as first steps toward the milestone. • One action will be a step we would take as principal. • Another action will be a step we would ask of someone else. Would that be a team, a teacher, another administrator, who?

14. Definitions • Vision – A brief description of the ideal school as it might be described by a stakeholder. • Mission – The school’s central purpose, what it does. • Goal – An academic or personal competency outcome desired for ALL students. A goal stays in place for the long term—several years at least. • Goal Performance Measure – A quantitative measure of annual progress toward a goal. • Strategy – A practice or cluster of practices that are employed in pursuit of a goal. A strategy typically takes several years to fully implement. • Milestone – Work on a strategy that will be accomplished in a year. • Action – A significant task or activity that on the path to meeting a milestone.

15. A. Academic Goal 1 Strategy (from Setting the Direction): • Milestone 1: • Action 1 (our first step as principal): • Action 2 (the first step we will ask of someone else, and who): • Milestone 2: • Action 1 (our first step as principal): • Action 2 (the first step we will ask of someone else, and who):

16. B. Academic Goal 2 Strategy (from Setting the Direction): • Milestone 1: • Action 1 (our first step as principal): • Action 2: (the first step we will ask of someone else, and who): • Milestone 2: • Action 1: (our first step as principal): • Action 2: (the first step we will ask of someone else, and who):

17. C. Personal Competency Goal 2 Strategy (from Setting the Direction): • Milestone 1: • Action 1 (our first step as a principal): • Action 2 (the first step we will ask of someone else, and who): • Milestone 2: • Action 1 (our first step as a principal): • Action 2 (the first step we will ask of someone else, and who):

18. D. Personal Competency Goal 2 Strategy (from Setting the Direction): • Milestone 1: • Action 1 (our first step as a principal): • Action 2 (the first step we will ask of someone else, and who): • Milestone 2: • Action 1 (our first step as a principal): • Action 2 (the first step we will ask of someone else, and who):

19. So what? Designing Our School has been an interesting project, but what is the point? In designing a school, you have drawn upon your own values as an educator to create a vision of a school as you would want a school to be. You also outlined practical steps in how the work would be put into motion. Now, how has this activity given you insights that will be useful in your real work in your real school?

20. Applying What We Have Learned Discussion • You developed values for the school you designed. Do these values reflect how you go about your work? In what ways? • You created a vision for your ideal school. In what ways does that vision statement express your personal philosophy about education?

21. Discussion • What three conclusions do you draw from Designing Our School might be turned into objectives for change in your own school? • __ • __ • __ • Would all or part of the Designing Our School activity be useful with your faculty or your Leadership Team?