Strategic Plan for A Chronically Low-Performing School

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Introduction

“Traditionally, the low- performing label has been applied with a broad brush to “bad” schools having a wide range of perceived deficiencies: low academic expectations and achievement, high dropout rates, lack of discipline, inadequate facilities, and demoralized staff” (Lashway, 2003). The federal government with the indoctrination of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) provided an official definition of chronically low performing schools. The definition consist of schools that have not met their Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) in reading and math over a four year period. The newly defined classification of a chronically low performing school would demonstrate low academic achievement in reading and math with no growth on annually administered state assessment over a period of three years. The school would also fail to show ability to gauge its needs, plan, develop, implement, and monitor the necessary strategies that will improve student achievement. The measure of growth in this area relies upon the results of a district lead audit. This would utilize classroom observations, walk-throughs, interviews of all stakeholders (students, parents, staff, and community), and review of data submitted by the school around the areas of attendance, suspensions, retentions, and dropouts.

Strategic Plan

The strategic plan for improving chronically low performing schools will utilize a leadership component, and four phases. The four phases are equivalent to the frames of Bolman and Deal. Bolman and Deal (2003) discuss four frames: Structural, Human Resource, Political, and Symbolic. They define the frames as follows: Structural- reflects a belief in rationality and a faith that th...

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