Updates and
Plan Implementation
2009-2010 Priorities
build on 2008-09 work
Seattle Public Schools
is committed to ensuring that every student in every classroom is
achieving and graduates from high school ready to succeed in
college, careers, and life. The District’s strategic plan,
Excellence for All, provides a roadmap to raise
achievement for all students, retain and attract great teachers,
and increase efficiency in Seattle Public Schools. For the
2009-2010 school year, we have identified six strategic priorities
to focus our efforts as we continue to implement Excellence for
All. These priorities build on our previous work and
include:
- Special
Education and Bilingual Education:
implement key audit
recommendations to improve the delivery of Special
Education and Bilingual
services.
- College-readiness
: support four key areas
directed at strengthening the district's college-readiness
commitment. The four key areas are: curriculum alignment, student
supports, college-level course offerings, and targeted teacher
professional development.
- Data and
Assessments: develop a data
warehouse for easily extracting student-level data and adopt
district-wide assessment system to provide more frequent, formative
information to teachers and principals.
- Performance
Management Framework: implement the first phase of the
school performance framework and build capacity for subsequent
phases; release district scorecard; continue to build community
understanding of performance work. Learn more below about the
launch of our District-wide performance management system which
will provide the information and data we need to continuously
improve the quality of education and meet our Excellence for
All goals.
- Student
Assignment: redesign the district's student
assignment plan to increase access to high quality programs,
improve predictability, decrease complexity, minimize
transportation costs, and foster diversity where
possible.
- Leadership
Development: strengthen school and district leaders
through implementing a new evaluation system and a leadership
development program.
2008-2009 Strategies
and Progress
For
the 2008-2009 school year, we prioritized five strategies that
served as key building blocks in our implementation of
Excellence for All. These strategies included: Math
and Science, Assessments, Data Systems, Hiring Process, and Student
Assignment/Capacity Management.
- Math and
Science: Adopt an aligned curriculum in math and
science
Adopting common, District-wide materials will strengthen our
teaching of math and science, provide continuity of instruction
across schools, and increase our ability to support strong
professional development for our teachers. Progress made in
2008-09: we adopted
high school math instructional materials; high school science
slated for 2009-10.
- Assessments:
Implement District-wide, student academic
assessments
District-wide assessments will allow teachers to consistently
track student progress and use assessment data to provide
personalized instruction. Information about student academic
progress will be available to teachers more frequently and in a
more timely manner. Progress made in 2008-09:
selected new benchmark assessment system -
Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) - to use in all schools
grades K-9 in math and reading.
- Data systems:
Update student-level data systems to provide information that
teachers and administrators need to best support every
student.
Teachers and administrators need easily accessible, up-to-date
information to make effective decisions. Updating our data systems
will help teachers have a more complete picture of student
performance and help school staff and district administrators
determine which interventions can best help individual students.
Progress made in 2008-09: launched Academic Data
Warehouse project to improve access to student-level data; created
template for annual school and district performance
reports.
- Hiring
process: Ensure that the hiring process is timely, efficient and
attracts the highest caliber talent
Attracting and hiring
highly qualified staff will strengthen our ability to provide
excellent instruction in every classroom. Progress made
in 2008-09: adopted new hiring workflow and related
technology to support it, making it easier to identify qualified
applicants and fill vacant positions. Created new principal and
central office leadership and professional development
opportunities.
Last Update:
November 12, 2009 4:43 PM