School District Redesign / Improvement Project - Essay Example

The schools in this district have witnessed a high graduation rate in recent years, but there is still room for an improvement for all of its students. At the end of each student’s education in this district, it is expected that they will have great emotional and social health in order to be industrious in their lives as citizens. Executive Summary The Scotch Plains-Fanwood School District aims at meeting the educational needs of all students through the use of academic intervention, behavioral intervention, therapeutic intervention as well as prevention opportunities.

The mission of this school district is to readdress student behavior by utilizing positive programs meant to enhance rigor, relationships, and relevance by focusing on academic achievement, leadership, self esteem, responsibility and community service. The focused academic instruction hubs on information analysis and professional development, while the school wide instruction focuses on research based instructional strategies. Prevention and intervention efforts dwell on the counseling services that are done through student support services (Hartman, 1998).

District-Level Redesign In the district redesign and planning process, there is a designated committee that is responsible for creation and evaluation of action plans. These action plans are meant to address four major goals concerning community relations, resource use, student achievement, and technology (Duffy, 2004). The planning process follows a needs assessment touching on historical trends and strengths. In order for the Scotch Plains-Fanwood School District to function properly, there should be a continuous upgrading and redesign so as to serve the student base as well as the community.

Leadership is a very considerable aspect of any school redesign and improvement plan, hence the need to address its significance. These leadership roles are awarded to people who have had a relevant amount of experience in these redesign plans. The redesign plans cannot be implemented without the use of local collaboration (Siegel & Byrne, 1994). Indulging this collaboration shows the school district’s effort to link up with the surrounding community in order to work together to raise good law abiding citizens.

School-Level Redesign Overview Formal and informal meetings should be held with the schooling and district personnel in order to get their opinion pertaining to the redesigning initiative. At this juncture, the district level administrators should have done their research on their educational programs and those of their neighbors so as to enhance the one they use. This crew will form the redesign team. It should consist of principals from the eight schools in the district, an adjustment counselor, the District Technology Coordinator, a Title I Literacy Specialist as well as the Director of Curriculum and Instruction.

In order to involve the parents in the decision process, at least one parent from each will be included into the planning process. This team should hold their meetings at least once a week prior to the implementation of the redesign process. Their duty will be to manage the operational implementation of the proposed changes on top of the continuing plans for the transformational model (Lawrence, 2004). Part of their management will include the continuous assessment of the progress of the goals and objectives set.

This will be done, in part, with constant communication with all the members of the committee. One of the objectives of this