ED 5399 Week 3 Assignment

Week Three Assignment, Part 1 – CARE Model Analysis of District/Campus Improvement Initiatives or Action Research Plans

Please review your intern plan. In the first course, students were encouraged to engage in some action research, or participate in district or campus improvement initiatives. Each of you has had some experiences with such initiatives or action plans. Please review those experiences and complete the following analysis:

Concerns – Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research, and list at least three concerns that you have identified from these experiences – a concern may be any matter that engages your attention or interest.

1.     Community Involvement- Business Partnership are predominate on the north side of our district, where there are plenty of businesses, there are few and limited partnerships on the south side. Therefore, the students and schools of the south side have no partners to help them accomplish their goals, limited to no involvement or promote the things occurring on this side of the school district.

2.     Not making AYP as a district for the second year has put our district in stage 1 of school/ district improvement. All of us will have to make changes and show proof that we re working towards meeting AYP for the upcoming year.

3.     Leaders training their staff on upcoming STAAR, EOC and state initiatives as this is the new state assessment and as leaders we need to be the best resource to our staff.

Affirmations - Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research, and affirm or identify at least 3 actions that must be sustained and supported to achieve the District/Campus improvement initiatives.

1.     We must create opportunities to ensure business partners are involved, engaged, invited and promoted to school functions, through school functions at district events.

2.     We must work as a district to rewrite our goals, using the criteria given to GPISD by the federal government and TEA to ensure we are on the right track towards meeting AYP. Then we have to update our CIPs to reflect these new changes, initiatives and ensure we check on our progress throughout the year to ensure we are following the plans outlined at the beginning.

3.     Engage in powerful training for leaders to be true leaders and to get into one of the most powerful pieces of education which is curriculum. We must be able to train those we hire to be the best when it comes to the core content areas, good instructional practice and

Recommendations - Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research and describe at least 3 recommendations you would make regarding the District/Campus Improvement plans or action research plans.

1.     Get more people to involve and interact with business partners. Create opportunities to

2.     Have a few sessions for principals on how the CIP must change, what components need to be included and what the district plan will be so campus plans can be reflective of these goals.

3.     Have principals visit other campuses in their PLC to see how they are handling staff development, to see how they train and learn from each other. Create an initial cohort to train principals and work together so they can see each other in action and learn from their peers.

Evaluate - Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research and identify at least 3 strategies for evaluating the improvement plans or recommendations.

1.     We need input from the area businesses as to how they could improve our relationships. We must realize this is a two way street and we need their input before we can request their support.

2.     We must evaluate our DIP and campuses CIP to ensure the items listed are being carried out. We must also take time to evaluate the budgets and expenditures as to ensure they are complying with the goals that were set out.

3.     Staff development is always on going and something that needs to be updated continuously throughout the year. We need to evaluate their effectiveness without penalty to ensure they gain confidence and not feel like their peers comments will be used against the, but used as a tool to help them grow. I would also add that the area directors and staff development office be involved in these training sessions with the principals to grow our team, our knowledge and our capacity.