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THE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PROCESS (SIP)
Introduction In the last decade, the School Improvement Process (SIP) has become the generally accepted quality process for schools in the United States. It is a formal process published by the National Study of School Evaluation (NSSE) and its associated accreditation organizations. In the Diocese of St. Petersburg, as well as in all the dioceses in Florida, parochial schools are required to conduct a School Improvement Process as one of the primary conditions of reaccreditation. MHR has utilized the SIP since its last reaccreditation in 2004. The SIP is the most formal and important institutional self-evaluation and improvement program at Most Holy Redeemer Inter-Parochial School. The entire staff, as well as parents, students, and the parish communities participate. All families are asked to participate in the parent survey. SIP is an extensively documented program that, among many other functions, produces the school's annual update. It also provides the framework for our future reaccreditations, the next of which is scheduled for 2011. It derives its strategic vision from—and provides direct support to—the mission of the school. It is guided by the school's statements of belief. The SIP involves rigorous procedures, copious data, and thorough analysis and documentation. All the details are available any time to any interested staff and families through the assistant principal's office. The SIP's bottom line, however, is its goals and how well they are being achieved or maintained. The sections below explain how the goals are developed, what they currently are, and how the school is measuring up to them.
To expand on each of these points: Measurability. The school's goals are stated in measurable terms. Test score percentiles and ratings are utilized for the first two goals; the number of detentions issued is utilized for the third goal. Academic Achievement. By NSSE definition, the school's SIP goals must be crafted to directly support student achievement. Thus, they support the academic facets of the school mission and the social environment that contributes to academic achievement. Practicality: A SIP goal must also be practical. Total school resources—financial, staff, temporal, logistic, and any volunteer resources—are finite. Plus, some of those resources must be allocated for missions and requirements that may not be directly addressed by SIP goals—physical education programs, for example, not to mention utilities and infrastructure. In practice, therefore, a SIP goal has to be pragmatic; if not, it will be both unachievable and of no value to the improvement process of which it forms such an important part. Student Population. Most Holy Redeemer Inter-Parochial School has historically, as a matter of policy, maintained a very charitable posture in accepting students from a broad socio-economic, academic, physical and religious spectrum. This is consistent with the second sentence of its mission statement (the philosophical tone the school sets for itself), and contributes to all three objectives described in the first sentence. Whether the mission statement explicitly says so or not, the school's resulting de facto policy of embracing a spectrum of children means that SIP goal metrics must reflect the range of those children's abilities. At the individual level, the school still strives for, and in many cases achieves, near-perfection in standardize evaluations. But given its mission and philosophy, MHR's overall standardized percentile goals can be expected to be different than those of, say, some highly admission-restrictive preparatory schools. To reiterate, realistic macro numerical targets must acknowledge the collective ability of an entire student body whose composition is also the product of the school's mission. Grade Level. Quantified goals are inappropriate for younger children whose progress is measured qualitatively. Therefore, SIP academic goals are not defined for grades kindergarten through two when using ITBS scores as a measure of improvement. However, programs in the primary grades are designed to lay a firm foundation for future academic success. Evaluation Issues. A tendency for schools to focus teaching on standardized evaluations is well documented. Most observers, including many throughout the Florida public school system and elsewhere, agree this is not a desirable end state. MHR concurs. Therefore, goals associated with standardized examinations should not be inflated. As long as such goals remain realistic, the school should be able to avoid the "teaching the test" syndrome. Achievability. All the above notwithstanding, it is also mathematically impossible to improve quantitative scores indefinitely. At some point, quantitative goals must evolve from percentile increases into maintaining high testing score results. Strategic. SIP goals, by definition, are overarching. While measurable, they should be sufficiently broad to foster appropriately focused plans and programs without dictating the details.
MHR Progress to date The data that support the progress summaries below are voluminous and context-sensitive. For these reasons, it is impractical to publish comprehensive tables of results here on the website. Instead, we keep all this information readily available in the school offices for our staff and families. We strongly encourage those who may be interested to come see us and review all the results in whatever detail they wish. Please contact the office of the assistant principal for details. ITBS scores were re-normed in the 2008 - 2009 testing year and are more difficult than the previous (year 2000) norms. According to The Riverside Publishing Company (which publishes the ITBS), "This means that a person must score a greater number of raw score points to get the same percentile." They go on to explain that, "If a student scored at the 75th percentile in reading using 2000 norms, you would expect that to correspond to the 72nd percentile [using current] norms. . . ." In another example, "If a grade 5 student scored at the 50th percentile . . . you might expect him to score in the middle 40s [now]." The above notwithstanding, here are a few highlights from the most recent statistics--as of the closeout of the 2008 - 2009 school year: Goal 1: Targeted area - Math Improvements noted in year 4 of our 5 year average: ITBS Grade 6 increased 1 percentile point in math concepts and estimation Grade 4 increased 1 percentile point in math problem solving Grade 5 increased 6 percentile points in math computation Grade 6 increased 2 percentile points in math computation STAR MATH scores (From 2008 to 2009) Grade 5 increased its score by 7 percentile points Grade 7 increased its score by 16 percentile points Grade 8 increased its score by 2 percentile points These scores are compared to scores of students nationally who tested in the STAR Math program. STAR MATH scores (Longitudinally - tracking the same groups of students from year to year) Grade 4 increased its score by 18 percentile points Grade 6 increased its score by 9 percentile points
Goal 2: Targeted area - Writing Improvements noted in year 3 of our 5 year average: Baseline scores on Language Arts Usage and Expression. Note: These scores were strong to begin with. Maintaining these high scores is also a goal of MHR--see the discussion on "Achievability" above. Grade 4 scores remained at the 84th percentile Grade 7 scores remained at the 81st percentile (Reminder: A score at the 50th percentile denotes the national average score. Anything above the 50th percentile is above average. Scores in the 80th percentile are very strong.) Iowa Writing scores The Diocese has recently implemented a new writing assessment program--Criterion® from Educational Testing Service (ETS®). When we get more information, we'll post it here.
Goal 3: Targeted area - Interpersonal Skills Over the past several years the number of detentions relating to infractions regarding interpersonal skills has dropped. The number of detentions for the baseline year of 2005-06 was 17. For 2006-07 the number was 16; for 2007-08 the number was 15. In 2008-09, that number dropped to 13.
MHR will continue to examine the strategies that have been used to determine which ones we should continue to use, alter, or eliminate in order to reach the goals we have set.
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