Week-2-Activities



**Administrative Leadership Team Challenge - Needs Assessment (Team)**

The No Child Left Behind Act requires all schools, districts and states to show that students are making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in reading, math and other measures. The school as a whole (all students) needs to meet AYP targets. Also, subgroups of students -- African American, American Indian, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, White, LEP, economically disadvantaged, and special education students – need to meet the same AYP target. Analyzing state assessment data will help you to identify gaps between performance and AYP targets. Areas of low performance will help you to determine the student deficiencies that must address for your school to improve.

As a principal, you will need to involve your staff in data-driven dialogue to make data-driven decisions. By doing this, staff members will feel ownership over the decisions you make collectively. Through a process of collaborative inquiry with your team, you will engage in data-driven dialogue this week to make shared meaning of data, consider multiple perspectives, separate data from inference, and make data-driven decisions. Be sure that each team member assumes the staff role that you designated last week and looks at issues from that perspective. For example, someone in a guidance counselor role might consider the social needs of the students, while a general educator might have an academic focus. How will you address both needs? **Administrative Leadership Team Challenge:** Conduct an analysis of your school scenario data. As a team, collectively decide on an instructional goal that will be your school’s focus for the upcoming year. Create a vision for your school || You are not restricted to using the ELC discussion forum for your team challenge. Feel free to use a collaborative tool, such as a Google Doc or Wiki Space, or consider having a synchronous chat (please save a copy of the chat log). If you choose not to use the ELC discussion forum, please be sure to give both your instructor and instructor support access to whatever format you use, and use your team's weekly discussion thread to note where to find the information. **Directions** > >> TIPS Be sure to focus on the analysis of the data, not what you think should be done to improve the results. Also, avoid drawing early conclusions of why the data look like they do. To help you with the task of creating a vision, you can refer to the Effective Leadership course.
 * 1) The Facilitator should create a new thread in the team discussion forum entitled **Week 2: Needs Assessment.**
 * 2) Individually, access the scenario for your school and review the climate survey data obtained for your school (see sample on right). Ideally, this data should show perceptions of the school from teachers, students, and caregivers in a variety of areas.
 * 3) Use the questions below to guide your team discussion in response to the team challenge:
 * //What does the data tell you about your school’s performance on the state assessment?//
 * //Did your school meet AYP in all areas? If so, by what margin did you meet AYP? Are there particular subgroups that require additional support to meet or exceed AYP?//
 * //What does the climate survey data tell you?//
 * //What questions does the data raise? What additional information do you need to address the questions?//
 * //Looking at your needs, what is the intervention that will have the largest, most immediate positive impact on your school and help you reach your instructional goal?//
 * //What is your vision for your school based on that identified need?//
 * 1) By midnight Monday, your team should come to consensus on a vision and one instructional goal for your school in response to the team challenge. The team’s Reporter should post your team’s response in a clearly labeled thread in your team discussion forum.