Building
Strong Schools to Strengthen Student Outcomes—A Summer Review of Previous Blogs (I of IV)
Introduction
While some of you
are still working, most educators are off “for summer vacation.” But, let’s be honest. Most educators tire pretty quickly with the
vacation part of the summer, and soon begin to “surf the web”—watching
professionally-related webinars and other videos, and reading blogs and
articles about new ways to positively impact students, staff, and schools.
Armed with new
thoughts and perspectives, they think about the year just ended, and make plans
to begin the new school year more successfully.
To help in this
process, I have reviewed and organized virtually all of the popular Blogs that
I have written over the past four years into four clusters:
* School
Improvement, Strategic Planning, and Effective School and Schooling Policies
and Practices
* The New Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESEA/ESSA), and Multi-Tiered and Special Education
Services
* Students’ Mental
Health Status and Wellness, and School Discipline and Disproportionality
* School Climate
and Safety, and School Discipline and Classroom Management
Starting with this
Blog, and continuing during the summer with the next three Blogs (July 1st, July 15th, and July 29th), I will
briefly overview each of the areas above, and then provide you with the Dates
and Titles of past Blog messages—so that you can look up and read at your
“summer leisure” those that particularly interest you.
_ _ _ _ _
As you know, I
often incorporate and critique crucial national issues, reports, studies, and
controversies into virtually all of my Blogs—“sprinkling in” my 35+ years of practitioner-oriented
and common sense perspectives and experiences.
Much of my work has
been synthesized as Project ACHIEVE—an evidence-based national model
school improvement program (as designated in 2000 by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration—SAMHSA). Project ACHIEVE
components have been implemented in exemplary through “needs improvement”
preschools through high schools nationwide; as well as in alternative,
residential treatment, juvenile justice, special education, and other
specialized school centers.
Significantly, these
“implementations” are NOT “one-shot, drive-by deals.” Typically, I work with schools and districts
for three or more years. Often, I help
them secure grant funding so that they can implement our work together without
the pressures of time and money.
And so, over the
next four Blog messages, I will also describe different facets of Project
ACHIEVE (www.projectachieve.net) so
that you will have a broader context for some of my Blog-related perspectives,
beliefs, and recommendations.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
An Overview of
Project ACHIEVE
Project ACHIEVE is
an innovative school reform and school improvement program that has been
implemented in schools and school districts in every state in the country since
1990. To date, one or more of its
components have been presented to thousands of schools nationwide—with the
schools ranging from urban to suburban to rural, and from the lowest performing
to the highest performing schools in the nation.
As noted above, Project
ACHIEVE has been cited in SAMHSA’s National Registry of Effective and Promising
Practices, and it has accrued numerous other national citations—including
designation as a “select program” by the Collaborative for Academic, Social,
Emotional Learning (CASEL).
Project ACHIEVE’s
ultimate goal is to help design and implement effective school and schooling
processes to maximize the academic and social, emotional, behavioral progress
and achievement of all students. Project
ACHIEVE has also helped schools to implement effective and efficient
problem-solving and strategic intervention processes for students with academic
and behavioral difficulties, while improving the staff’s professional
development and effective instruction interactions, and increasing the quality
of parent (and community) involvement and engagement.
In all, Project
ACHIEVE helps schools, communities, and families to develop, strengthen,
reinforce, and solidify children and adolescents’ resilience, protective, and
effective self-management skills such that they are more able to resist
unhealthy and maladaptive behavior patterns.
At its core,
Project ACHIEVE provides implementation blueprints that are based on
research-proven and empirically-demonstrated effective practices that have been
woven together into an implementation process that works. Initially, schools complete a comprehensive needs
assessment and resource analysis to determine their current needs, the approaches
they are using that are working, the gaps that are preventing them from
improving further, and the strategic goals and outcomes that are desired or
indicated.
Project ACHIEVE
then employs a whole school improvement process that has professional
development and ongoing technical consultation as its foundation. The professional development process focuses
on teaching staff (a) research-based information and effective instructional
and educational practices that (b) translate into skills that are successfully
implemented in school and classroom settings in a way where (c) staff
confidence and autonomy develops over time.
Using its school
effectiveness and professional development process, Project ACHIEVE places
particular emphasis on increasing students’ social and conflict resolution skills,
improving student achievement and academic progress, facilitating positive
school climates and safe school practices, increasing and sustaining effective
school and schooling processes, and increasing parental involvement and
support.
Project ACHIEVE
also teaches and reinforces critical staff skills and intervention approaches
that focus on helping staff to strategically plan for and address the immediate
and long-term academic and behavioral needs of all students. Project ACHIEVE
uses an integrated process that involves strategic planning and the building of
school and staff resources, internal capacity, and system independence. Formative and summative evaluations using
“real-time” data help to determine whether Project interventions and procedures
are improving student, staff, and home/community outcomes.
In summary, Project
ACHIEVE is an innovative school reform and school effectiveness program
targeting the academic and social development of all students. In doing this, Project ACHIEVE implements
preventive programs that focus on the needs of all students. It develops and implements strategic
intervention programs for at-risk and underachieving students. Finally, it coordinates comprehensive
“wrap-around” programs for students with intensive needs.
Project ACHIEVE was
the school improvement model for the Arkansas Department of Education’s State
Improvement and Personnel Development (SIG/SPDG) grants for 13 years, and the
state’s NCLB School Improvement Model for all School Improvement “Focus”
schools. It has also received over $20
million in federal, state, and foundation grants since 1990.
Project ACHIEVE
consistently embraces its mission: “Building Strong Schools to Strengthen Student
Outcomes.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
School Improvement,
Strategic Planning, and Effective School and Schooling Policies and Practices
As is evident
above, the strategic planning process anchors virtually everything that we do
within Project ACHIEVE, and that all schools and districts do as they plan
and try to maximize all student outcomes.
Over the past three
years, I have written a number of Blogs discussing the strategic planning
process, how to make leadership decisions, how to build staff cohesion, as well
as the impact of losing superintendents and teaching staff on (unfortunately) a
routine basis.
Relative to topics
that are routinely discussed in the “popular press,” I addressed such topics as
corporal punishment, teasing and bullying in school, chronic absenteeism,
reading and grade retention, the length of the school day and when it starts, and
even the mindfulness “epidemic.”
Below is a list of
the Dates and Titles of the Blogs addressing these topics. To find the Complete Blog Cited Below:
Please go to the right-hand side of
this Blog page. There you will find a Blog
Archive. Using that Archive, pull
down the month and year of the Blog you are interested in, and click on
the Blog’s title to link to the original message.
Here are the
Blogs:
School Improvement and Strategic Planning
March 18, 2017: What Happens When School Leaders
Make Decisions Not for the Greater Good, but for the Greater Peace: “You
Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time. . . But You Can’t Please All of
the People All of the Time”
March 5, 2017: The Revolving Door of the
Superintendency: A Case Study on Resetting the Course of a School
District. . . When Mission, Vision, and Values Count More than Resources,
Requirements, and Results
January 17, 2016: The Seven C's of School Success
(Part II): The Ultimate Staff Strategies to Build Strong, Cohesive
Relationships and Effective, Productive Teams
December 19, 2015: The Seven C's of School
Success (Part I): The Ultimate Organizational Strategies for School
Success
October 3, 2015: Is Your Strategic Plan Focused on
Outcomes. . . or Just a Direction? There are "Many Roads to
Rome"- - But You Need an Address and a GPS to Get There
July 25, 2015: The Seven Sure Solutions to School
Success: How Many do You Need?
May 31, 2015: School Improvement? The Questions
your Department of Education Needs to Know
May 9, 2015: The Beginning of the New School Year
Starts in April
April 4, 2015: Planning for Next Year's Successes
THIS Year: Addressing Your Professional Development, On-Site Consultation, and
Technical Assistance Needs at the System, School, Staff, and Student Levels
March 28, 2015: March Madness: How Effective
Schools are Like Successful Basketball Teams
March 1, 2015: Stop Your Best Teachers from
Leaving the Field: Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Recruiting, Training, and then
Losing Your Best Teachers
December 13, 2014: Rich District, Poor District:
Common Sense Practices to Maximize Resources and Improve Student Outcomes
November 8, 2014: A New Federal Report Documents
What Low-Performing are NOT Doing to Succeed: 12 Questions that WILL Guide
School Improvement Success
October 26, 2014: School Improvement Succeeds
only with Shared Leadership: A Field-Tested Blueprint
_ _ _ _ _
Popular School and Schooling Policies and Practices
February 19, 2017: Federal and State Policies ARE
NOT Eliminating Teasing and Bullying in Our Schools: Teasing and Bullying
is Harming our Students Psychologically and Academically—Here’s How to Change
this Epidemic through Behavioral Science and Evidence-based Practices
November 13, 2016: Beating Kids in Schools:
How Corporal Punishment Reinforces Bias, Violence, Trauma, Poor Social
Problem-Solving, and the Fallacy of Intervention. . . The
Alternative? Eliminate Corporal Punishment by Preventing its Need, and
Implementing Interventions that Actually Change Student Behavior
June 12, 2016: How to Improve your Chronically
Absent Students' Attendance. . . During the Summer
March 20, 2016: Grade Retention is NOT an
Intervention! How WE Fail Students When THEY are Failing in School
February 13, 2016: Reviewing Mindfulness and
Other Mind-Related Programs (Part II). More Bandwagons that Need to
be Derailed?
January 30, 2016: Reviewing Mindfulness and Other
Mind-Related Programs: Have We Just Lost our Minds? (Part I).
Why Schools Sometimes Waste their Time and (Staff) Resources on Fads with Poor
Research and Unrealistic Results.
November 28, 2015: Start the School Day
Later? How Students Use their After-School Time, Media and Smartphones,
and Opportunities to Sleep
September 7, 2015: When Kids Can't Read:
Policy and Practice Mistakes that Make It Worse
August 9, 2015: Donald Trump, Negative Campaigns,
and Social Skills: Modeling Intolerance for our Students?
April 25, 2015: Extending the School Day? Is it
Due to Ineffectiveness, Disengagement, or Enrichment?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
I hope you find
these Blogs important and meaningful to your work.
Meanwhile, I always
look forward to your comments. . . whether on-line or via e-mail.
If I can help you
in any of the areas discussed in this and these Blog messages, I am always
happy to provide a free one-hour consultation conference call to help
you clarify your needs and directions on behalf of your students,
staff/colleagues, school(s), and district.
Please accept my
best wishes for a safe, restful, and fun summer !!!
Best,
Howie
