CSIP Phase III

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Operational Definitions

When completing the template sections that follow, please refer to the following operational definitions: 

• Goal: Long-term three- to five-year targets based on the school level state assessment results. Long-term targets should be informed by the Phase Two: Needs Assessment for Schools *Additional information in the following two sections including setting goals for groups with suppressed data;

• Objective: Short-term yearly target to be attained by the end of the current academic year. Objectives should address state assessment results and/or aligned formative assessments. There can be multiple objectives for each goal;

• Strategy: An approach to systematically address the process, practice or condition that the school will focus its efforts upon, as identified in the Needs Assessment for Schools, in order to reach its goals or objectives. There can be multiple strategies for each objective. The strategy can be based upon Kentucky's six Key Core Work Processes listed below or another established improvement approach (i.e., Six Sigma, Shipley, Baldridge, etc.);

• Key Core Work Processes: A series of processes identified by the Kentucky Department of Education that involve the majority of an organization's workforce and relate to its core competencies. These are the factors that determine an organization's success and help it prioritize areas for growth;

KCWP 1: Design and Deploy Standards 

KCWP 2: Design and Deliver Instruction

KCWP 3: Design and Deliver Assessment Literacy

KCWP 4: Review, Analyze and Apply Data Results 

KCWP 5: Design, Align and Deliver Support

KCWP 6: Establish Learning Environment and Culture

• Activity: Actionable steps the school will take to deploy the chosen strategy. There can be multiple activities for each strategy;

• Progress Monitoring: Process used to collect and analyze measures of success to assess the level of implementation, the rate of improvement and the effectiveness of the plan. The measures may be quantitative or qualitative but are observable in some way. The description should include the artifacts to be reviewed, specific timelines, and responsible individuals; and

• Funding: Local, state or federal funds/grants used to support (or needed to support) the activities. 

Goal Setting:

When developing goals, all schools must establish achievement gap targets and set goals in the area of state assessment results in reading and mathematics. Other goals aligned to the indicators in the state’s accountability system and deemed priority areas in the Phase Two: Needs Assessment for Schools are optional.

Required Goals

Achievement Gap

KRS 158.649 requires the school-based decision making (SBDM) council, or the principal if no council exists, to set the school's yearly targets for eliminating any achievement gap. The targets should be established with input from parents, faculty and staff and submitted to the superintendent for consideration and the local board of education for adoption. In addition to being a statutory requirement, intentionally focusing on the achievement gaps that exist among a school’s underserved student populations is also a vital component of the continuous improvement process. Schools should use a variety of measures and analysis when conducting its review of its achievement gaps, including a review of the school’s climate and culture. Schools are not required to establish long term achievement gap goals; however, schools must establish yearly targets. 

State Assessment Results in Reading and Mathematics

Kentucky’s accountability system uses multiple academic and school quality measures, with each indicator contributing to the overall score. Reading and math proficiency are foundational to student success, and state assessment results in reading and mathematics carry the greatest weight when calculating the overall score at each level (elementary, middle and high school). This indicator is a required goal area for all schools.  

Optional Goals: Alignment to Needs

Through the Phase Two: Needs Assessment for Schools, priorities were identified, and processes, practices and/or conditions were chosen for focus. Identify any additional indicators that will be addressed by the school in order to build staff capacity and increase student achievement. For any indicator noted as a priority, schools must complete the the same . For any indicator marked with a “no,” no further information is needed.

Suppressed Student Data and Improvement Planning Goal Setting (provided by KDE)

Goal Setting and Improvement Planning 

Achievement Gap Goals (provided by KDE)

When developing achievement gap targets, a school or district could find itself in the position of writing a goal for a group that is fully suppressed. In other words, there is no public information about their performance on the School Report Card (SRC). In this case, leadership teams may review the suppressed data individually and create a goal without referencing the current achievement level of the group directly. For example, a goal could state that, “The average performance of subgroup A in reading will increase by 5 percent.”  

Another option for achievement gap goals could be to bind groups together and set a goal of relativity. For example, a goal could state that, “The gap between the lowest performing subgroup and the highest performing subgroup will decrease by 5 points.” This would again provide those with an educational need to know with a meaningful goal to work toward without exposing any suppressed data to the public. 

Please note that KRS 158.649 states that when local boards of education are determining whether  each school achieved its targets for each group of students, boards are only considering data for a group of students including ten (10) or more students. 

Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) Schools 

One of the issues with Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) goal-setting is the suppression of detailed data, but not the general performance information. For example, a school may be TSI for special education, but then may have the detail data suppressed because fewer than three students in that subgroup performed at the distinguished level. This causes the entire NAPD spectrum to be suppressed. In this instance, a general goal such as, “The average performance of special education students in reading will increase by 5 percent” would be appropriate. This would not violate suppression as it is not tied to the NAPD spectrum, and the publicly available information already identifies that the special education subgroup is low-performing.  

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