Developing OUR PLAN

There is some great stuff afoot! First of all, people should definitely check out the Single Plan for Student Achievement - yes, there are 149 pages. Yes, it is highly skimmable.

http://www.lahigh.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=42156&type=d&rn=9458902

However, you can much more easily check out the last lines of the Table of Contents attachment and see what the prioritized "strategies" are. Second, what we discussed at the Starbucks last week (backed up by comments at the UTLA meeting) was making sure that a. we had people ready to participate in that committee and have key goals in each of the seven sections that we believe LAHS should focus on. These goals can guide the input that people will make into the i) the amendments to the Single Plan, ii) the QEIA plan, and iii) the High Priority Schools Plan.

Why are all these things being mentioned together?

Because all of these are going to be due together on April 15th. Yes, that April 15th. Oh, and yes, the WASC visit is going to be happening that same week. Thanks a lot, LAUSD.b. we were ready with thoughts on what our responses should be to the district's needs assessment/Compliance Checklist. (please see attached). Supposedly, this 'needs assessment' will be on-line starting now and we need to, as a staff and parent community, complete it by March 6. What 'completing' it means is not exactly clear, and we don't even have the actual link yet. However, this does give us a chance to communicate with other staff before the assessment must be complete. It feels really important that people don't see this as just another survey.The District's needs assessment could potentially be used like a Stull Evaluation, especially around curriculum and instruction. If we are assessed to NOT be complying with district mandates (remember, these are not just for the 34 High Priority Schools, but for all LAUSD schools), this could be used against us as individuals and as a school. Additionally, if their needs assessment’s key findings become action steps that cost money and end up attached to our Single School Plan for Student Achievement then our money could be used for what Brewer and the Local District think are important, as opposed to what we might prioritize based on a REAL needs assessmentStarting Wednesday, with the creation of a School Site Council Subcommittee designed to move forward on these things, we will be able to move this plan forward. However, as Rey suggested at the UTLA meeting, we ought to be as prepared as possible walking into the first meeting.

Here is a suggestion how:

Pick a section and put together your thoughts on what would actually help LAHS. You can use the genuine LAHS needs assessment conducted last semester as inspiration (it was an attachment on the last email).
Reply all and tell folks which one you are thinking about.

Try and fit your thoughts into the High Priority Schools plan Action steps (see attached). This is a great place to start cause this is how we get our ideas that can later guide budgets in.
Also, think about how we can bring this to the staff in any kind of meaningful way to get input.
Make sure that you are on the subcommittee (many folks raised their hands at the UTLA meeting, but if you weren't there and want to get in on it - email me. There will be something put out to the staff, but get in their first.)

B-trackers, don't forget to check your email in order to see scheduled meetings of UT@LA and the subcommittee!

I am proposing Thursday March 6 to come together and discuss what's up with all of these pieces of a delightful LAHS puzzle! Let me know if this works for you!?Again, we discussed the real strengths that could come with choosing a few foci and really putting our brain and budget power into them. If we can't get them into the Single Plan, then we can't spend the money or use it as our back-up when we push back on any Local District alternate proposals. Also, without staff and community buy-in, it can't really go forward.

Thanks again for moving on this stuff

- Rebecca

SINGLE SCHOOL PLAN

The Single School Plan is available to ALL! Via this Link

SINGLE SCHOOL PLAN

The Single School Plans available HERE

Reflections on Single School Plans and District "Providers"

Hello, all!!!

So i spent all last Thursday at a meeting with a hundred + district people so they could tell us what we are supposed to do with this High Priority Schools Plan at our school. The district has already assigned us a provider, MGT of America. (I met the actual guy assigned to our school – he will be traveling back and forth from Roanoke City, VA for the 9 days that he will be spending with us at Los Angeles High School).

The meeting was stuffed full of talking head presentations that went on for hours. Unfortunately, one of the things that came out clearly was about the “needs assessment” associated with the HPSP. It became VERY clear that the “needs assessment” they were putting forward was not a needs assessment, It was rather, a compliance checklist to see how far along we are in our implementation of Superintendent Brewer’s plan. There was no discussion of what would happen to the school if we were found to be “far below basic” in reaching the benchmarks set by the district toward reaching goals set by the district using tactics created by the district. The most obvious example was the Curriculum Section: the “needs assessment’ asks how far LAHS has come in terms of implementation of pacing plans, content lessons, mandated assessments and ‘reducing’ the number of non-standards aligned materials. Based on how far we are, we are supposed to come up with a remedy and an action plan

This action plan is then to form part of our High Priority Schools Plan for LAHS and any monetary requirements are to be attached to the single school plan (so we can allocate the necessary funds – and if the funds are not there, we are supposed to go to the Local District, and if they are not there we are supposed to go to the Superintendent.) In a budget crisis this looks ridiculous and one of the district spokespeople on this issue even said so herself.

The Provider, in our case MGT of America, is supposed to facilitate the collaboration of our staff in
· conducting the “needs assessment”,

· selecting one key accountability or goal within each of the seven Plan Strategies (Curriculum, Instruction, Leadership, Parent/Community, Safety, Organizational and Support, Accountability) that we are going to be working on for the next school year Our goal must be related to their menu of potential overarching goals - see attached Accountabilities Sheet)

· and in in converting the information gathered in the “needs assessment” into an action plan around that goal, complete with benchmarks, responsible persons, expenditures and a timeline.
The district people were clear in saying that we had to choose a few goals to move on, and that they were not expecting us to achieve everything by the end of the 2009 school year (thank you very much).

At the meeting, many of the chapter chairs present pushed back on the plan (see the attached UTLA response that came out of the UTLA High Priority Schools Task Force: UTLA Position on High Priority Schools plan). We spoke from the podium and got our words in edgewise with our local district folks.

So what are the potential bad things that could come out of this and how can we counteract them? What are the things we might be able to push for in this process that might benefit our school in the long run?

Their needs assessment could potentially be used like a Stull Evaluation, especially around curriculum and instruction. If we are assessed to NOT be complying with district mandates (remember, these are not just for the 34 High Priority Schools, but for all LAUSD schools), this could be used against us as individuals and as a school.

If their needs assessment’s key findings become action steps that cost money and end up attached to our Single School Plan for Student Achievement then our money could be used for what Brewer and the Local District think are important, as opposed to what we might prioritize based on a REAL needs assessment.

What can we do within this process to get something for ourselves?

a) Use this as a way to jump start an actual collaborative process between the faculty to build common goals and a few things we might work on as a staff.

b) Using the process we discussed at the Starbucks on Wednesday, participate in the School Site Plan subcommittee to build into the SSP the key things we have gotten from the faculty that they want to see our school do. These are the things we believe the faculty wants to focus on, that we could get buy in on, etc.

c) Heavily promote/advertise/’brand’ those few key areas or goals to the faculty so that all instructional leaders (slc, depts, all of us) and other folks are very familiar with the main things we all feel our school should be working on.

d) Use that revised plan to guide our budget creations and hold administrators accountable in spending, as well as use the plan to guide policy decisions in all areas including SSC, SBM, etc.
Some thoughts on what do we have to do now:

Get ourselves familiar with whatever the hell the Single Plan is

Create our goals in each of the key areas (it seems like we have already said at least one of the goals is reorganizing Professional Development/Collaboration. That fits in in the Instruction area. It is also linked to the Curriculum section, as we are saying that a big reason to do this is to develop meaningful locally developed (rigorous, blah blah) curriculum that we can implement.
Make sure that we speak up and push that these goals are reflected even in a false needs assessment.

Make sure that we set up a subcommittee of SSC where we have a formal route to get input into the Single Plan

Push to have the Provider do a real needs assessment that uses existing structures like SLCs and departments, as opposed to creating anything new or artificial (or, even worse, temporary). We can start with what we have already done when we collected data from parents, teachers, and students last year. We even gave this to LD3 in October (see attached Information passed on at the OCT3 )

What is missing here? What is over the top? What is good? What is weak? Please reply all so we can dialogue.

D Rabinowitz Comment

I like your idea of

Push to have the Provider do a real needs assessment that uses existing structures like SLCs and departments, as opposed to creating anything new or artificial (or, even worse, temporary).

We can start with what we have already done when we collected data from parents, teachers, and students last year.

Create our goals in each of the key areas
That way if these folks are forced on us, they become our supporters not our adversaries.