School+Improvement+Plan

The school improvement plan is written by a group of educators and administrators who write a school wide plan, that mirrors state and district goals, to improve the school in some way over the course of a year. The school improvement plan team will set goals that they feel are challenging yet within the schools reach. They will take the best interest of the students into consideration when creating these goals. Even though the plan must be based around state goals, the teams most important job is to make sure the students will learn efficiently and make progress.

From GS $115C-105.27: "Parents and staff serving on school improvement teams shall reflect the racial, socioeconomic composition of the students enrolled in that school..."

This is the basis for which the school improvement plan is written around. Cedar Grove Middle School's Vision statement is focused around this statement reading, "Cedar Grove Middle School will be a leader among the other educational institutions, providing ample opportunities for student success, ensuring quality teaching experiences, and respectfully serving the communities we represent." This statement leads us to believe that the school is focused on the best interest of the students.

After reading and analyzing the school's improvement plan, I found no Goals that support this statement. All goals are centered in some way around formative assessments and what can be done to ensure their students scores will increase.Goal 2: Development Strategy 1 reads, "All core classes will give a common formative assessment every three weeks, in coordination with three week progress reports." (Cedar Grove Middle School; School Improvement Plan 2011-2012) This is very misleading. When reading about what a school improvement plan should possess, then seeing Cedar Grove's Mission, Vision and Belief Statements, one would expect a more well rounded improvement plan.