Throughout my internship I have been involved in many activities that not only gave me a variety of experience and insight, but also contributed to the development and progress of the school district. One of those activities was taking part in the district improvement plan this year.
It is imperative for districts to engage in a needs assessment activity or activities to review the data and ultimately the needs of the district/campus. As part of the improvement team, we actually started with the District's mission statement and vision for the district. Once we had the school board approval, we then began to align the district improvement plan with the mission statement and the vision of the district to formulate the plan.
Throughout the planning process I have found some elements that have been imperative to designing an improvement plan. One is leadership. Our superintendent kept us focused and really brought the leadership team and the school board together to begin the improvement process. Another essential element is having the goal in mind when you begin the process. By beginning with the mission statement and the vision, we were able to design the improvement plan with the target in mind or what we wanted to accomplish as a district. Essential to any good plan is follow-through and having great principals to communicate the plan to their campuses has been and is instrumental. Receiving input all along the way keeps the effort focused and brings unforeseen issues to the forefront.
The internship has been invaluable as far as the experience I have received, but also for the insight into the "inner workings" of a school district.
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