External Influences In Schools

Schools today have many external influences from stakeholders including parents, the community, and even the governmental bodies that preside over the school system in its respective state. The Baldrige National Quality Program lists several influences that can create challenges for schools such as changing demographics, increasing and/or decreasing student population each year, appropriation of funds, changing tax base, state or federal mandates that need to be followed, to competition of charter schools, and even recruitment and retention of a qualified workforce (Baldrige National Quality Program, 2007, p. 41). These influences offer several challenges to a school’s principal and staff. The principal and the staff have a responsibility …show more content…
Seven to ten years previous to her tenure as principal the school had used what they called “The Model” for leveling students in the content areas to help them learn the standards. The students were all leveled according to test results. The higher achieving students were sent to one teacher for content area instruction while the middle and lower students were sent to the other teacher on the grade level team for instruction on their level. The data showed that this model did help the higher achieving students but had a negative impact on the lowest achieving students and was not helping the school reach the district goal. After some time and talking to the faculty, Mrs. Williams was able to help them see that this model was not helping students learn deeper, and so they decided to move forward with another approach. The district provided a dedicated hour each week for teachers to work in Professional Learning Communities (PLC) by instituting a late start Monday across the district. A consultant was also brought in to help the faculty learn about how to effectively use the PLC process with a focus on student achievement. The faculty learned about “diagnostic and prescriptive reading intervention, as well as the power of looking at data together and tier II interventions” (Williams, personal communication, …show more content…
With 80% of students being sufficiently served by the new core programs in reading and math and the dedicated intervention/enrichment time provided through Title I, more students are able to show gains through the year. The school has shown overall growth toward the district goal with near 50% of students showing respectable, solid learning gains. This shift in teaching from the old antiquated ways of teaching have shown to be effective, however, there is still room for growth. The school is on a steady uphill climb to achieve their goals (Williams, personal communication,