Data Doc Analysis 4 - Priority Goals and Objectives

Areas of Work	STaR Chart Key Area	Resources Used to Determine	“Broad Area”
Increase student achievement in all areas including academics, extracurricular, and character.	Teaching and Learning	STaR Chart/Campus Goals	Customer
Build capacity in all district employees by recruiting, retaining, and training fully certified and highly qualified principals, teachers, and staff.	Educator Preparation and Development	STaR Chart/SWOT/Campus Goals	People
Build a college and career going culture throughout the district that promotes critical, creative, progressive, and innovative thinking	Leadership, Admin, Instructional Support	STaR Chart/SWOT	Financial
Become a district of choice in Kaufman County by improving student programs and services.	Infrastructure for Technology	STaR Chart/SWOT	Process

Priority goals
1.Increase student achievement in all areas including academics, extracurricular, and character. 
2.Build capacity in all district employees by recruiting, retaining, and training fully certified and highly qualified principals, teachers, and staff. 

3.Build a college and career going culture throughout the district that promotes critical, creative, progressive, and innovative thinking. 

4. Become a district of choice in Kaufman County by improving student programs and services.

Key Technology Area of Work

1.       The district will provide high quality staff development.

2.       The district will recruit, retain, & train fully certified and highly qualified administrators, teachers, and staff.

3.       Technology will be integrated throughout the district.

4.       Parental and community involvement will be encouraged.

Area of work Priority goal and objective

1.       The district will provide high quality staff development.

a.       High quality training for staff on technology integration.

                                                                           i.      Weekly training on available technology

2.       The district will recruit, retain, & train fully certified and highly qualified administrators, teachers, and staff.

a.       Provide incentives for staff who perform well

                                                                           i.      Weekly and monthly recognition programs.

3.       Technology will be integrated throughout the district.

a.       Technology department will ensure framework for technology is complete.

                                                                           i.      Weekly checklist for infrastructure improvements and implementation

4.       Parental and community involvement will be encouraged.

a.       Seek out additional sources of finance available through community and parents.

                                                                           i.      Weekly goal for number of contacts made concerning financial backing.

I included the objective under the goal in the last section because it seemed to be better to leave them connected than in separate lists. The idea in this format is that each numbered list is connected to the above numbered list so all together it would look like the following

	District priority goal	Key tech area of work	Priority goal	Objective	Alignment
1	Increase student achievement in all areas including academics, extracurricular, and character.	The district will provide high quality staff development.	High quality training for staff on technology integration.	Weekly training on available technology	STaR Chart-Teaching and Learning: Developing Tech
2	Build capacity in all district employees by recruiting, retaining, and training fully certified and highly qualified principals, teachers, and staff.	The district will recruit, retain, & train fully certified and highly qualified administrators, teachers, and staff.	Provide incentives for staff who perform well	Weekly and monthly recognition programs.	STaR Chart-Educator Preparation and Development-Developing Tech
3	Build a college and career going culture throughout the district that promotes critical, creative, progressive, and innovative thinking.	Technology will be integrated throughout the district.	Technology department will ensure framework for technology is complete.	Weekly checklist for infrastructure improvements and implementation	STaR Chart-Infrastructure for Tech: Developing Tech
4	Become a district of choice in Kaufman County by improving student programs and services.	Parental and community involvement will be encouraged.	Seek out additional sources of finance available through community and parents.	Weekly goal for number of contacts made concerning financial backing.	STaR Chart-Leadership, Admin, and Instructional Support: Developing Tech

1.       #1 is admittedly a bit of a stretch as the district goal is student focused whereas the area of work is focused on staff training, the thinking behind this is better trained staff can provide better service to the customers ie the students.It’s a lot easier for me to see and understand what I’m doing when it’s in a table format.

2.       #2 is almost the same, just the words a bit different. Clearly in the staff general area and closely related to #1.

3.       #3 is again a bit of a stretch, the thinking is technology integration will, itself promote critical, creative, progressive, and innovative thinking.

4.       #4 is focused on finance and infrastructure, the idea being that by getting the community and parents involved in financing the school they will have a stake in its success. I don’t think this is happening much but it should be.

Strategic Planning for Tech Discussion Four

Areas of Work	STaR Chart Key Area	Resources Used to Determine	“Broad Area”
Increase student achievement in all areas including academics, extracurricular, and character.	Teaching and Learning	STaR Chart/Campus Goals	Customer
Build capacity in all district employees by recruiting, retaining, and training fully certified and highly qualified principals, teachers, and staff.	Educator Preparation and Development	STaR Chart/SWOT/Campus Goals	People
Build a college and career going culture throughout the district that promotes critical, creative, progressive, and innovative thinking	Leadership, Admin, Instructional Support	STaR Chart/SWOT	Financial
Become a district of choice in Kaufman County by improving student programs and services.	Infrastructure for Technology	STaR Chart/SWOT	Process

How do the areas of work you identified align with Olsen's " broad areas"?

The areas in the chart are from TISD district plan, I think they are fairly well aligned with the broad areas. Each of them are from a section of the STaR Chart so that is helpful.

Do they align with priority goals that MISD's addresses in its district and department strategic plans?

I think they are pretty similar to MISD district plan, wording is different and focus is shifted on some of them but overall similar goals.

Do you see alignment between those areas of work and the priority goals set by the school that you’ve selected in its strategic plan?

Yes I can see where the areas of work and the priority goals are aligned. They seem to flow from an idea to a step to implement the idea.

Now that you’ve conducted your SWOT, do the results prompt you to refine or change the technology areas of work that you identified in Week 2?

Somewhat, my responses from the SWOT were limited, I didn’t get a lot of response. I ended up using a lot from the example provided assuming it would be similar across schools. I think I will stick mainly to the stated areas of work and refine them in the details of implementation.

Data Doc Analysis 3 - Strategic Challenges & Advantages

Vision- With the use of technology students will achieve academic excellence and promote responsible, productive, and ethical behavior.

Mission - Increase the use of technology for every student, every day for 21st century learning experiences. 

Star chart summary

1.     Teaching and Learning 13                                                 Developing tech

2.     Educator Preparation and Development 12                          Developing tech

3.     Leadership, Admin., Instructional Support 12                       Developing tech

4.     Infrastructure for Technology 13                                        Developing tech

SWOT

Strengths-Administration support, Strong tech team, good support, iPads availability

Weaknesses- infrastructure, more devices, fixed mindsets, bandwidth

Opportunities- training, collaboration, eBooks, students allowed to bring own device

Threats- Lack of funds, cyber bullying, sexting, social networking

Strategic Challenges

1.       If we don’t address technology infrastructure, we can’t be the school we aspire to be. If we could only lay the groundwork for technology infrastructure, we could become a school characterized by academic excellence and widespread integration of technology resources.

2.       If we don’t address a lack of funds, we can’t be the school we aspire to be. If we could only increase funding, we would become a school that can provide 21st century learning experiences to every student.

3.       If we don’t address fixed mindsets, we can’t be the school we aspire to be. If we could only move towards a growth mindset, we could become a school that is utilizing every available resource and forging ahead in the use of technology in the classroom.

Strategic Advantages

1.       We can expand our administration support to overcome our fixed mindset. We can leverage our administration support given our relationship with our tech team.

2.       We can expand our training to overcome our fixed mindset. We can leverage our training given our relationship with our tech team.

3.       We can expand our collaboration to overcome our lack of funds. We can leverage our tech team given our relationship with administration support.

I tried hard to follow the outline but i'm not real happy with how it ended up. the sentences seem "clunky" and strange. I cant imagine actually saying them in real life. i don't know maybe i am misunderstanding the assignment, maybe it would be easier if i worked there and knew the day to day activities represented by the SWOT. like for strategic advantages i could do something like "we can use our support from the administration to push teacher with a fixed mindset to move towards a growth mindset." or "We can collaborate to overcome a lack of funding by using our tech team to do more with less." maybe this is just me complaining again. (i tend to do that and i am working on it) 

Data Doc Analysis 2 - Mission & Vision Statements

Our Mission

The mission of the Terrell Independent School District, a community of unique, diverse people, is to provide an exceptional learning experience in a safe, nurturing environment, challenging our students to achieve academic excellence and to be responsible, productive, and ethical members of a changing society.

I believe this is the district mission statement, I called up to the school to confirm this. A pretty interesting call. The first person I talked to didn’t seem to know what a mission or vision statement were. They were happy to transfer me to someone they thought might be able to give me a better answer though. The new person confirmed what I have above is the district mission statement but that was all they had. She didn’t know about the vision statement though. I told her I found the motto online and asked if that was what they were using. She didn’t know what the motto was so I read it to her but she didn’t recognize it.

The mission of the Terrell Independent School District, a community of unique, diverse people,- this part is just describing who TISD is and sees themselves as. I don’t think it needs to be included in the mission statement because it isn’t a mission, it is just who they are.

is to provide an exceptional learning experience in a safe, nurturing environment, challenging our students to– this is the meat of the mission I think. Provide an exceptional learning experience is something you do, the same with nurturing environment, something you need to provide, and finally challenging students, again something you need to achieve.

achieve academic excellence and to be responsible, productive, and ethical members of a changing society. – this is the result section, what they expect to happen if they achieve the last segments goals.

For a rewrite, I would just edit out the first part leaving the following

Our mission - is to provide an exceptional learning experience in a safe, nurturing environment, challenging our students to achieve academic excellence and to be responsible, productive, and ethical members of a changing society.

I think that keeps exactly with what they wanted to say and removes the part that aren’t necessary.

As I said there were some confusion at the school as to if there was a vision statement so I am using the motto.

Motto: 100% of JFK students will learn and achieve every day!

As for using this as a vision statement I think it works great. It is short to the point and gives an example of what needs to happen every day.

Overall from what I understand from the readings though the articles these are backwards. The mission statement should be short term goals (1-3) years where the vision statement should be longer term end results.

So with the renaming they would look like this

Our vision - is to provide an exceptional learning experience in a safe, nurturing environment, challenging our students to achieve academic excellence and to be responsible, productive, and ethical members of a changing society.

Our mission -100% of JFK students will learn and achieve every day!

I am wondering if I didn’t get them confused myself but as I reread it I think short term is mission and long term is vision so that should be correct.

edited mission/ vision after classmate suggestions

Vision- With the use of technology students will achieve academic excellence and promote responsible, productive, and ethical behavior.

Mission - Increase the use of technology for every student, every day for 21st century learning experiences.  

Data Doc Analysis 1: School Strategic Plan

Data Doc Analysis

Data Doc Analysis 31OCT2016

1. Select a school.

Terrell Independent School District http://www.terrellisd.org/

I picked this school because it is where my daughter will be going in a few years unless I can convince my wife to let me home school. I planned on looking at JFK elementary but it looks like most things are district based here.

2. Find your selected school's strategic plan.

http://media.wix.com/ugd/602059_a46d40c063c4441a8b9380e0257e21ea.pdf

It’s a 37 page pdf file, has goals for each school in the district, pretty impressive overall.

3. Download your school's 2013-14 Campus STaR Chart

Got it 1 page pdf

summary

1. Teaching and Learning 13
2. Educator Preparation and Development 12
3. Leadership, Admin., Instructional Support 12
4. Infrastructure for Technology 13

4. Compare your school's STaR Chart to the state.

1. Teaching and learning - JFK Elementary is developing tech in this area. 59.3% of Texas schools are in the same ranking.
2. Educator Preparation and Development – JFK Elementary is developing tech in this area. 68.7% of Texas schools are at the same ranking. This seems like it would be the easiest area to improve, no idea why it isn’t being done.
3. Leadership, Admin., Instructional Support – JFK Elementary is developing tech in this area. 38.6% of Texas schools are in the same ranking with most being in a higher ranking. Would like to see this improved, I think it is most likely due to funding and amount of it support.
4. Infrastructure for Technology – JFK Elementary is developing tech in this area. 30.4% of Texas schools are in the same ranking with most being in a higher ranking. This seems like a simple fix, as it appears to be hardware and funding related.

Developing tech, most scores were a two with two sections receiving a 3 score, range 12-13 in all categories. Of course, it would be better if TISD was ranked higher, it would be nice to see it in the Advanced tech category. I wonder if all possibilities for improving these scores are being looked at. #4 seems easy to improve with a grant of tech supplies from local merchants. Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Fry’s Electronics donate networking hardware to schools all the time. I wonder if they are being asked to help out.

Discussion 3 SWOT Analyses

JFK Elementary

Vision- With the use of technology students will achieve academic excellence and promote responsible, productive, and ethical behavior.

Mission - Increase the use of technology for every student, every day for 21st century learning experiences. 

SWOT analysis

Like most of the posts I looked at, I think just about every possible answer was included in the GSES example. So far I have only received two responses from my email request. The business director who doesn’t think she is the right person to help me out and the technology director who says he will help where he can but is covered up in projects now. I am impressed at getting these responses. The last time I did this class I didn’t receive any replies. I ended up going up to the school I picked to see if a personal visit would help. Unfortunately, it didn’t end well. So, any response is a big bonus in my opinion. That being the case I am just going to choose my own SWOT off the GSES example.

Strengths-Administration support, Strong tech team, good support, iPads availability

Weaknesses- infrastructure, more devices, fixed mindsets, bandwidth

Opportunities- training, collaboration, eBooks, students allowed to bring own device

Threats- Lack of funds, cyber bullying, sexting, social networking

I think this list is ok to start with. Most of it was repeated multiple times in the GSES example so I expect them to be fairly common.