School Design Results: Individual Summary
| Assessment |
Needs Most Improvement
|
Needs Improvement
|
Close to Best Practices
|
Best Practice
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| District Support | ||||
| Teaching Effectiveness | ||||
| Instructional Time | ||||
| Individual Attention | ||||
| Special Populations | ||||
| Portfolio Management | ||||
HOW DO I INTERPRET MY RESULTS?
Your results show how your responses compare to "best practice." Our definition of "best practice" is based on nearly 10 years of work with large urban districts, as well as deep study of the research into what makes high-performing school systems succeed.
You can read more about our vision for urban school system transformation in One Vision, Seven Strategies or in the School System 20/20 section of our website.
These results are not an evaluation of your district—they are the beginning of a strategic conversation. We hope they spark crucial discussions with your colleagues, and point to where more research and data may be needed. You can see a detailed report of your answers below.
A note about "Don’t Know": "Don’t Know" answers may lower your overall score in a particular section. If you marked "Don’t Know" for every statement in a section, that bar will not appear at all. Check your detailed report below for your "Don’t Know" count.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Learn What Your Peers Think: Resource Check is most useful when used in a group. For example, an entire leadership team can take the self-assessment as a part of the budgeting and strategic planning process. Each person’s answers are kept private, while the group result is visible to all. Learn more about setting up a group »
Continue your assessments: Go deeper in the areas of Funding, Turnaround, and Teaching, or try the full Resource Check, which includes these areas and more.
Understand the big picture: Learn more about our vision for transforming school systems through:
- The School System 20/20 infographic
- The One Vision, Seven Strategies paper
- The School System 20/20 site which is filled with publications, case studies, videos, and step-by-step worksheets to help you better understand how your district organizes people, time, and money currently, and to learn best practices for using your resources to meet students’ needs.
More on School Design: Learn more about our vision for strategic school design:
- School Design Resource Guide
- School Design in Action Site (Detailed profiles of how schools are optimizing resources)
- Video: Turnaround in Action
- The Strategic School Book
District Support
- Does your district provide a menu of school design templates for schedule, staffing, teacher teams, student groupings, and interventions that each school can match to its needs and priorities?
- Provide principals with support and training to develop, implement and manage resources for innovative, strategic school designs?
- Empower principals to hire and assign staff and make schedule changes according to school and student needs?
- Give principals the ability to make spending decisions independently?
- Share best practices across schools?
- Do measures exist at the school and/or district level to ensure resource use is linked to improved performance?
- Are performance and resource use targets regularly monitored and supported by district leadership?
Teaching Effectiveness
- Are teachers deliberately organized into teams with complementary skills and experience?
- Do teams in all schools have at least 90 minutes of collaborative planning time per week?
- Do teams and teachers receive support from coaches, specialists, or experts when they need it?
Instructional Time
- Maximize academic time in core subjects within the school day for students who need it?
- Extend learning time beyond the standard school day for students who need it?
- Use a variety of block and other scheduling options to achieve instructional goals?
Individual Attention
- Does the district provide teachers with effective formative assessment tools?
- Does the district encourage teachers to adjust instruction based on student performance data?
- The district provides schedules, groupings, and structures that create targeted individual attention and personal relationships between students and teachers.
- Do schools use a variety of strategies (e.g., small-group instruction, tutoring, looping) to provide individual attention to students who need it?
Special Populations
- Do schools tailor their instructional model and approach for special populations (e.g., special education, ELL, gifted) based on the needs of specific students?
- Does the district use Response to Intervention techniques or other interventions to support struggling students?
- Are most special education and ELL teachers certified in core academic subjects as well?
Portfolio Management
- Has the district deliberately created a portfolio of school types (e.g., charter, magnet, specialty, standard) and sizes to meet students’ needs?
- Does the district proactively match students with the most appropriate school size, structure, and program offerings?
- Does the district have a clear plan for staffing small and specialty schools to balance program needs with cost-effectiveness?
- Does the district monitor school vacancy rate and take action to maximize the use of facilities?
- Are students with specialized programming requirements (e.g., special education, ELL, gifted) assigned to schools in a way that balances high-quality, cost-effective instruction with the need for inclusion and choice?