Strategic Planning

Thoughts on Strategic Planning

Notes from class (LSA 5400, Dr. Gummerson)

• Mission and visions need to be posted for all to see (and included in yearly orientations)

From Sorenson, ch 3-A Model for Integrating Vision, Planning, & Budgeting

Sorenson & Goldsmith describe a process for creating what they call a school action plan and what is essentially the SIP document. What concerns me with their diagram here is that this amount of work would quickly overwhelm a staff. 14 strategies (an example strategy: students using a math program to remediate specific math objectives) would add far too much onto a teacher's plate. When choosing reform initiatives it's imperative to balance the needs of the school and students with teacher capacity and stamina to implement change. (pg. 105)

From Ubben, ch 4-School Improvement through Systemic Planning

Before beginning change initiatives, it's critical to determine the baseline, where the school currently is. Categories to include when considering a baseline: (pg 61)

• Curriculum and its articulation

• Instruction and current instructional strategies used

• How are students grouped for instruction and with what T/S ratios?

• Learning and teaching spaces and how they're used

• Schedules and time allocation across the curriculum

• How student learning is identified and tracked

• What is done when a student is not learning

• How are individual differences handled

• Philosophy and practice of classroom management/discipline

• Personal relationships among teachers and between Ts and Ss

Gather input from all stakeholders-surveys distributed and collected on site with a captive audience produce the highest rate of return

School Improvement implementation requires monitoring

From Smith, ch 2-Strategic Human Resources Planning

"Strategic planning as the process by which an organization envisions its future and develops the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that future." (pg 16)

From Hooper, ch 4-Cultivating a High-Performing Faculty

LInking Evaluation with Organizational Priorities: Three Steps to Establish Fidelity Measures (pg 55)

1. Specify the instructional practice identified as an organizational priority

   1. What is the initiative you are implementing? What outcome is it expected to achieve?

2. Conduct a "Core Components" analysis of the instructional practice

   1. What are the essential and indispensable elements of practice that are linked to the success of the initiative? How does each element serve to support student learning? What does each element look like in action?

3. Create a set of tools for monitoring implementation

   1. Rubrics, observation protocols, criteria for student work

   2. Establish timelines for monitoring

   3. Schedule should include but not be limited to formal observations conducted as part of the evaluation system

From Hooper, ch 8-Sustaining Inclusive Learning Communities

Three essential functions of effective learning communities (pg 119):

• Collaborative work

  • Clear goals for student learning-how do those fit in with the bigger school vision/purpose?

  • shared norms-must go beyond the basic rules of etiquette and norms for logistics

• Deprivatized practice

• Reflective Dialogue

Three Types of Decisions (pg 127):

• Informing-done by the leader due to time constraints

  • leader must provide information about the decision and the rationale

• Input-done by the leader, but not as many constraints

  • process by which input will be considered MUST be done in advance

• Involving-done by consensus

  • "require a clear communication structure and a common definition of consensus"

Consensus-"A group can achieve consensus when members agree that they can each "consent" to the decision (even if it is not their preferred choice) because it makes "sense" in the context of that which is important to "us" as articulated in the shared vision and goals."

From Bolman and Deal, Leadership Lessons: Align Structure with the Work

Four keys to a successful working group. They must know (pg. 103):

1. What are we supposed to do? (What’s our goal and strategy? What’s the task we’re charged to accomplish?)

2. What authority and resources do we have?

3. To whom are we accountable?

4. For what are we accountable? (What are we supposed to produce? A policy? An implementation plan? A written report? An oral presentation?)