Summary
Comprehensive Plan of Action and Recommendation of Belle Plaine Middle School
Mission, Vision, and Core Values
Developing, promoting, and implementing a common purpose, vision, and basic principles of high-quality education, academic achievement, and each student’s well-being are the hallmarks of effective educational leaders. A school leader must assist in creating, expressing, and implementing a school vision and acting as its steward. The proper management and administration of all relevant financial concerns is an illustration of good stewardship. Therefore, the school administration must ensure that resources are distributed in a way that advances the school’s mission and vision.
In this context, understanding the mission and vision of Belle Plaine Middle School is critical to improve educational leadership and unite all relevant stakeholders. According to Sorenson & Goldsmith (2018), “Budgeting, vision, and academic success are intertwined with each other in the planning process” (p. 9). Hence, it is crucial to initiate change in educational organizations by establishing specific mission and vision statements and clarifying the organization’s objectives for all stakeholders.
In the case of BPMS, the explicit mission statement is “to provide educational services of the highest quality and accommodate the needs of every student.” This idea incorporates the most significant areas of learning and provides a healthy and supportive environment for students. The vision statement is a broader concept that encompasses the school’s primary long-term objectives, which should clearly focus both on students and teachers. Hence, the overt vision statement is “to create a supportive community where all students, parents, and teachers feel respected and have the opportunities for personal and professional growth.” As a result, these statements advocate for various values, such as equity, academic performance, professional development, and supportive social interaction.
Each of the mentioned factors is essential to effective educational leadership, which, in turn, has a positive impact on teacher productivity. For instance, Harris & Jones (2019) showcase how the focus on the mentioned values can significantly improve teacher autonomy and reinforce their willingness to work for the benefit of the organization and students. As the authors note, “Teachers as the co-constructors of educational change and key contributors to policy making is an idea that is long overdue in many education systems” (Harris & Jones, 2019, p. 124).
As a result, the newly established vision statement helps integrate teachers’ feedback into most organizational processes and makes them feel more relevant to the school’s success. An involved and active group of educators will care more about the students, the organization’s business performance, and communication with parents since all these factors affect the overall school development. In summary, explicitly established mission, vision, and value statements will significantly improve the involvement of all stakeholders in the educational process.
Ethics and Professional Norms
The ethical considerations implemented by Belle Plaine Middle School dictate that the faculty uphold high professional standards. Ethical considerations should commence from leaders who ought to be assertive about their motivations and how they treat others. Ethics should also guide how these leaders fulfill their personal and professional purposes. Similarly, they are supposed to identify and improve on their weaknesses because when they do so, they will lead by example, making it easier for the rest to emulate.
The school leader’s identity must include ethical behavior at its core. Fairness, integrity, and equity are used to run the school’s affairs as efficiently as possible. When dealing with discipline issues, conducting government assessment testing, managing school finances, interacting with parents, overseeing professors and staff, and in various circumstances, school administrators must act ethically.
The crucial recommendations include engaging in all facets of school leadership ethically and professionally, encouraging the values of justice, honesty, openness, and trust, learning and constant growth, putting students first in the classroom, and taking ownership of their academic and general well-being. It also implies defending democracy, personal responsibility, social justice, equity, and diversity. An excellent way to ensure that all these values are implemented in allocating the 12% budget increase is to create a team to manage the budget supplement. In addition to the school board, parents, instructors, and teachers should be representatives to ensure that this budget increase benefits as many people as possible.
Equity and Cultural Responsiveness
For school administrators, it is crucial to promote equity when allocating resources by being sensitive to diverse cultures. At present, most schools have problems with addressing the needs of socially and culturally diverse students, and it is a relevant issue in the modern education system. Jagers et al. (2018) emphasize that social and emotional learning (SEL) is an effective method to promote equity and make students feel a sense of belonging. The authors define equity as the environment where “every student has access to the resources <…> regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, language, disability, family background, or family income” (Jagers et al., 2018, p. 2).
Evidently, this objective is challenging to achieve, particularly due to socioeconomic causes and their significance in the modern educational system. However, it is critical that BPMS strives to improve equity since it is the school’s primary value in the established mission and vision statements.
The budget supplement in this area could help immensely to mitigate some of the existing problems. As the case study shows, the students from minority groups and children with limited English proficiency demonstrate generally lower results, and their parents do not always feel welcomed in the community. The proposed SEL program could mitigate these issues by investing additional finances into training programs that focus specifically on self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (Jagers et al., 2018). These learning sessions are beneficial for both educators and students, making the environment more culturally responsive and understanding that everyone has different needs.
Lastly, this initiative can significantly help resolve the conflict between the Old Pros and Greenhorns. Teacher disputes in BPMS primarily emerge from not understanding and accepting the opposite perspective on education, whether it is a lack of experience or reluctance to adopt innovative learning strategies. Self-awareness and social awareness are two essential competencies that help people realize their own flaws and how they affect social interaction (Jagers et al., 2018). In other words, training programs that focus specifically on these areas will be beneficial in finding a compromise between the Old Pros and Greenhorns concerning educational standards. Hence, the implementation of SEL or some of its principles is a recommended strategy for BPMS to improve the overall equity in education.
Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
Effective educational leaders create and support the intellectually demanding and cohesive curriculum, teaching, and assessment frameworks to support each student’s academic performance and well-being. The core responsibilities of a school leader are in the spheres of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. During the following three years, the school can use part of the 12% budget increase to develop the technology used in education, such as hardware, software, or even faculty and employee training, as they all appear to require an upgrade or replacement. Moreover, the school should establish and uphold high student learning standards to improve academic performance.
Curriculum, instruction, and evaluation should be in line with academic standards. Additionally, it is important to ensure educational processes are genuine to students’ needs, differentiated, customized, and compatible with child development. Encouraging the efficient use of technology for learning and teaching may be effective with the data used to track student development and enhance education. The team delegated these roles should be thorough to promote superior quality of education.
Community of Care and Support for Students
Strong school communities are necessary to assist learners, but this can only occur if the leaders of the school and the larger community actively encourage and guide the stakeholders. The democratic tenets that support public education in the United States are crucial, and it is essential to involve as many stakeholders as possible to influence accomplishment positively. Thus, the important part of problem-solving in a learning community is openness and sharing. Developing trust is crucial and needs continuous communication with all stakeholders to build a thriving school community. The social interactions between parents and other stakeholders at school create the setting for building trust.
The school has to create and maintain a secure, loving, and healthy learning environment that satisfies each student’s intellectual, social, emotional, and physical requirements. The facility must establish and maintain a culture where each student is recognized, valued, trusted, respected, and is encouraged to participate fully in society. A strategy should be formulated through the 12% budget increase to ensure students are offered coordinated support services and extracurricular accommodations.
Professional Capacity of School Personnel
A new age of teacher assessment is now affecting educators. School administrators must consider employees’ professional competence. Developing professional ability requires thought and planning; it cannot be done randomly. At the very heart of a principal’s acting as instructional leaders is effective teacher practice is principals acting as encouraging the creation of a professional education community that supports efficient teaching and learning.
Principals must supply informational resources and personal, social, cultural, and financial capital. School personnel should continue professional development, be participant-driven, and be anchored in inquiry, reflection, and experimentation. Instructors should give chances for observation, assessment, and reflection on the new practices and assist in modeling, coaching, and collaborative solutions to difficulties.
To achieve it, the school board should find, employ, support, nurture, and keep compassionate and successful teachers and prepare for and control employee succession and turnover. The facility should offer efficient onboarding and coaching, differentiate learning opportunities for teachers, and use the understanding of adult development. Utilizing reliable, research-based monitoring and assessment procedures provide useful feedback about education. Moreover, it is crucial to expand educator and school community action opportunities and resources and encourage professors, staff, and oneself to maintain a healthy balance between their personal and professional lives and their job. All the requirements mentioned above require money, so part of the budget increase should be used to make these improvements over the next three years.
Professional Community for Teachers and Staff
Developing a professional community requires thought and planning; it cannot be done randomly. Promoting a professional community of learners that supports efficient teaching and learning is crucial for principals. For this, leaders must supply informational resources, social capital, financial capital, cultural capital, and human capital (National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 2015). Fortunately, the budget increase will play a significant role in helping improve the quality of the required staff because teachers of high value may require more financial remuneration. Also, the recruitment process of teachers and staff is certain to consume money.
Meaningful Encouragement of Families and Community
School administration should strengthen their involvement with their families and communities by creating an amicable environment where all feel at home. The optimal way to ensure this happens is by offering training services to teachers and staff, so they understand how to be hospitable. Training instructors and the team does not need much money, so only a small percentage of the budget increment should be directed toward this particular agenda.
Operations and Management
The necessity for a leader to establish a wide view that extends beyond operations and management is critical. It serves as an anchor for leaders to always act to advance the school’s purpose and vision while enhancing effectiveness and quality. By putting a special emphasis on each student’s learning requirements, the standard keeps consistency with other PSEL components. Furthermore, it emphasizes the significance of managing productive relationships rather than just viewing operations and management as a to-do list. Establishing, overseeing, and administering procedures and processes is necessary to advance the school’s mission.
Additionally, it could be beneficial to organize time and resources to meet each student’s learning requirements as effectively as possible and prevent interruptions to the work and learning of the teachers and other staff members. All these recommendations require money to facilitate, and so a certain percentage of the budget increase should be directed toward them.
School Improvement
School boards usually concentrate on making organized procedures for creating, testing, assessing, and improving the school’s primary work streams and initiatives to increase its capacity for instructional leadership. Engaging all school stakeholders requires effective communication and strategy. Many educational institutions use systems thinking, which fosters stronger stakeholder collaboration. To accomplish the purpose and adjust continuous improvement techniques to the fundamental values, the school should use continuous improvement by strengthening shared responsibility and accountability.
The stakeholders should develop their knowledge, abilities, and drive to succeed in development efforts and participate in continuing evidence-based research, strategic goal-setting, planning, executing, and evaluating activities with others. They are responsible for adopting a systems approach, encouraging coherence between improvement initiatives, and utilizing bravery and tenacity to successfully manage risk projects and change politics. Continuous improvement demands
Reflection
Reviewing several factors crucial to the institution’s operation makes it possible to differentiate between critical issues and those that can wait by outlining areas that require improvement and what could be done about them. It enables the creation of short-term goals through the exercise that may be worked on and achieved through the appropriate measures. The facility will also be able to plan how to provide the resources required to see the school reach its goals in the future by identifying areas that need extra attention.
Effective resource and budget distribution can be achieved through recruiting, investment in increasing the caliber of instruction continually, occupational framework, professional growth, and routine planning time (Miles & Frank, 2008). By emphasizing fundamental academics and literacy, the school can provide each student with attention, individualized learning settings, and smart use of their time (Miles & Frank, 2008).
Regarding ethical and quality matters, it is necessary to treat each student equally, with respect, and consider their culture and surroundings. Considering the student’s variety, culture, and strengths as advantages for learning and teaching ensures every child has instructors, educational opportunities, and social and academic assistance. The school should make policies that constructively, fairly, and impartially deal with wrongdoing.
Eventually, vision dictates the budget, and that shared vision is intended to assist all students in reaching their potential. The team needs to see how the budget and goal relate, and the leader must seize opportunities to advance justice. Fairness and trust will eventually be respected as one of the school’s cultures and will show up as ethical conduct through perseverance.
The different school stakeholders cannot expect to develop the trust necessary for a healthy environment if they do not regularly and meaningfully communicate with one another. School leaders must devote time and effort to creating the conditions that will allow parents and students to live in a safe and supportive environment. To be on the safe side, schools that are performing well might not feel the need to enlist residents and parents since the school is running smoothly; they do not want to run the danger of external stakeholders swaying the school’s academic direction.
Lastly, concerning personal reflection, I have learned much about resource allocation and effective leadership in educational organizations. One of the most critical conclusions from the analysis is that positive change should occur from top to bottom. Namely, I have realized the significance of the mission, vision, and value statements and their impact on how the school manages other areas of concern. For instance, the issues of equity, ethics, community acceptance, and even a thorough understanding of educators’ professional needs should be considered in relation to the school’s major objectives. Extensive research confirms the importance of values and clearly established goals on effective leadership and involvement of all stakeholders in the educational process (Harris & Jones, 2019; Miles & Frank, 2008). As a result, the current assignment made me realize the gravity of all legal, ethical, and equity issues associated with resource allocation and the general educational process.
Moreover, I would like to specifically focus on equity since it is one of the most notable problems in the BPMS case study. Students from minority groups and families with low income have demonstrated lower academic results, and this issue stems both from socioeconomic causes and a lack of equity in the community. The former is a national concern that should be addressed on multiple levels of development, including the overall quality of life and national economy. However, the school can initiate many policies that will help address the local equity issues and make students and teachers feel at home.
Personally, I agree that a significant portion of the budget supplement should be allocated to training programs, such as SEL, to improve the level of cultural responsiveness and acceptance. After all, the established vision focuses on creating a supportive environment for all stakeholders, and it is impossible to achieve this objective with the current state of equity, where some students and their parents feel unwelcome in school.
In summary, the current assignment was an excellent learning opportunity that showcased how multifaceted school management is. Effective leaders should always consider various areas of concern, motivate educators, meet the student’s needs, and address other associated problems. It is a highly challenging but rewarding process, and I am glad to have learned more about it. I intend to continue my education in this sphere and apply the acquired knowledge in practice to make a positive change.
References
Harris, A., & Jones, M. (2019). Teacher leadership and educational change. School Leadership & Management, 39(2), 123-126. Web.
Jagers, R. J., Rivas-Drake, D., & Borowski, T. (2018). Equity & social and emotional learning: A cultural analysis. CASEL Assessment Work Group Brief Series.
Miles, K. H., & Frank, S. (2008). The strategic school: Making the most of people, time, and money. Corwin Press.
National Policy Board for Educational Administration. (2015). Professional Standards for Educational Leaders. Reston.
Sorenson, R. D., & Goldsmith, L. M. (2018). The principal’s guide to school budgeting. Corwin Press.