The best way to identify the essential details for your school's SIP is to consult school staff during the SIP development process. If your school does not already have a prescribed format, you can use the following list as a starting point. These are all items that will add value to your SIP. Note that we are not suggesting you include everything in the list below in your SIP, nor do we claim that the list is a complete list of everything your school or school system needs to consider when developing its improvement plan:
- Cover page. This should include the title, your school's name, and the date.
- Committee member list. This should include the name and title of each member of the SIP team.
- State department vision and mission statements. Most state departments of education have a published vision and mission.
- School system vision and mission statements. Most school systems have a published vision and mission.
- The school's vision and mission statements. The overarching components of the school's vision and mission should fall within the parameters of the school system's vision and mission. If the school system does not have vision and mission statements, we still recommend that your school develop its own.
- School details and demographics. This includes school statistics on ethnicity; gender; English proficiency; economic status; educational designation (e.g., general education, gifted, special education, and twice exceptional); graduation rates; percentage of last year's students who enrolled in a two-year or four-year college or trade school; and enrollment in AP/IB courses.
- NCLB AYP Report Card or High-Stakes Report (depending on the state). If provided by the state, include a report of the most recent AYP results for your school by subject, grade, and subgroup status.
- School system goals and objectives (if available). These are typically created by the school board and/or the superintendent's office. They may be referred to as objectives or targets, among other descriptors.
- SIP calendar. The calendar should include the dates and times when the SIP team is expected to meet and when it is expected to deliver content and evidence of efforts and completion.
- Departmental goals. These goals focus on improving student achievement or delivery of services (for example, from the guidance department, the main office, and so on) specific to each department or team.
- Indicators of achievement. These are specific indicators or results that will be reviewed to determine effectiveness.
- Areas of focus. These include specific content areas, skills, standards, anchors, populations, and services that are targeted in the SIP.
- Action plans for each department or grade-level team. Each department's specific action plan includes data sources, point of contact, potential costs, staff development efforts, required materials, activities, and time line to put the action plan in place and measure its effect.
The sections of the school improvement plan that are specific to individual departments and grade-level teams should provide focus for each of the areas with regard to content delivery. For example, in our version, items 10–13 would include any department in the building. In this case, we use the math department as an example, which might have an overall goal such as "Student passing rates on the Geometry Standards of Learning [Virginia's year-end high-stakes assessment] will improve from 81 percent to 86 percent in the following year." In some cases, the goal may target certain populations, such as "The percentage of African American students successfully completing geometry will increase from 73 percent to 80 percent by the end of the following school year." Departments and grade-level teams should measure their efforts and indicators of effectiveness against these goals on a monthly basis to obtain objective information to fuel their discussions.
