Strategic Planning and Organizational Development Tools and Resources

The District and School Leadership Teams are key to the success of any strategic planning and organizational development initiative.  Indeed, these teams’ ability to guide organizational capacity, effective committee and staff processes, and academic and behavioral supports and interventions are critical to the success of all students, but especially at-risk, underachieving, unsuccessful, and unresponsive students.

    In order to help districts and schools in the diverse areas of strategic planning, organizational development, and leadership, the following tools and resources have been developed for your use:

Technical Assistance Papers on Implementing Project ACHIEVE’s Evidence-based School Improvement Process, and School-wide Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS)

I.  Project ACHIEVE’s Shared Leadership and Continuous School Improvement Process:  Initial Implementation Fact Sheet

II.  Implementing Project ACHIEVE at the School and District Levels:  Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) Implementation Fact Sheet

    Project ACHIEVE’s ultimate goal is to help design and implement effective school and schooling processes to maximize the academic and social/emotional/behavioral progress and achievement of all students.  Project ACHIEVE has also helped schools to implement effective and efficient problem-solving and strategic intervention processes for students with academic and behavioral difficulties, while improving the staff’s professional development and effective instruction interactions, and increasing the quality of parent (and community) involvement and engagement.  

    The first Technical Assistance paper (see link below) provides a number of school-level team or committee-focused “Preparation and Strategic Action Plans” to guide the initial year of Project ACHIEVE implementation.  

Initial Implement Action Plan

    The second TA paper describes the three-year process for implementing Project ACHIEVE’s school-wide Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS).

PBSS Fact Sheet

Technical Assistance Paper on Developing an Effective School Committee Structure

A Project ACHIEVE Blueprint toward an Effective and Integrated School-Level Committee Structure:  Process, Preparation, and Implementation

Continuous school improvement and school, staff, and student success are facilitated by understanding (a) the components of an effective school; (b) how strategic planning fits into these components; and (c) how the school improvement process is organized through the committee structure of the school and the activities of school-level committees.  This Technical Assistance (TA) paper addresses each of these issues, specifically focusing on an evidence-based blueprint of the school-level committees needed (structurally or functioning) by every school and what their primary missions should be.  Particularly emphasized are the Discipline/Positive Behavioral Support Committee and the School Prevention, Review, and Intervention Teams (SPRINT teams), and how these respective committee should be organized and function.

School Committee TA Paper

The Data-based Problem Solving Process:  Using School Prevention, Review, and Intervention Teams

The Response-to-Instruction and Intervention (RtI²⁾/School Prevention, Review, and Intervention Team (SPRINT) Model Implementation Guidebook

   The Response-to-Instruction and Intervention (RtI²)/School Prevention, Review, and Intervention Team (SPRINT) process is used when students are underachieving, unsuccessful, or unresponsive—academically and/or relative to their social, emotional, or behavioral functioning—in the classroom.  This Model Implementation Guidebook describes an RtI²/SPRINT process that has been used in hundreds of schools across the country, and that integrates both academics and behavior.   It provides a step-by-step implementation approach that is practical, field-tested, effective, and student-centered.  Organized along a prevention to strategic intervention to intensive need continuum, the Guidebook has sample forms and problem solving tools, and discusses two primary components.

    Relative to the first component, the RtI²/SPRINT process involves a data-based functional assessment process that determines why a student is not responding to effective instruction and classroom management.  This can be done by an individual teacher, a grade level of teachers through collegial consultation, or a building- level multidisciplinary team of professionals who engage in more intensive assessment and intervention.  

    The second RtI²/SPRINT process also involves a team process that involves a multi-tiered Problem Solving, Consultation, and Intervention service delivery approach that addresses different intensities of student need with evidence- or research-based instructional or intervention services, supports, strategies, or programs.

RtI/SPRINT Implementation Guidebook     NEW RESOURCE ! ! !

Schools in Improvement or Corrective Action Status:  Evaluating the Status, Analyzing the Data and Reasons, and Determining What to Do

Recommended District and School Data Analysis and Intervention Planning Process for Schools in Improvement or Corrective Action Status

    When the students in a school do not score at a high enough level of academic proficiency on the state standards assessment(s), and the school does not meet its adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals over a specified number of years, the school moves formally into “Improvement” or “Corrective Action” status.  This Technical Assistance paper describes a process that schools can use to evaluate their current status, determine why their students are not making sufficient academic progress, and link these reasons to strategic intervention approaches that will hopefully help both the students and school to be more successful.

SPDG Process School Improve Analysis Planning

Survey to Evaluate Staff Collaboration, Cohesion, and Effective Interactions

The Scale of Staff Interactions and School Cohesion

    The Scale of Staff Interactions and School Cohesion consists of 25 items and three scales (Staff Understanding of the School’s Mission and Expectations, Staff Collaboration and Cohesion, and Effective Staff Practices and Interactions) that staff rate along a five-point scale from 1- Excellent to 5- Poor relative to their perceptions of the staff in their school.  The scale was designed to evaluate the ongoing quality of the staff interactions that support effective school processes and activities.  A link to the scale is below, as well as another link to a spreadsheet that will facilitate the scoring process.

PBSS Staff Interactions Questionnaire
Revised Scale Staff Interactions Spreadsheet

Survey to Evaluate Staff Perceptions of their School’s Student Discipline Processes

The Scale of Effective School Discipline and Safety

    The Scale of Effective School Discipline and Safety consists of 58 items and five factors (Teachers’ Effective Classroom Management Skills, Students’ Positive Behavioral Interactions and Respect, Holding Students Accountable for their Behavior:  Administration and Staff, Teachers’ Contribution to a Positive School Climate, and School Safety and Security:  Staff, Students, and School Grounds) that staff rated along a five-point scale from 1- Strongly Agree to 5- Strongly Disagree.  The scale was designed to evaluate school staff attitudes and beliefs regarding the degree to which positive and effective positive school discipline and safety processes exist in their school.  A link to the scale is below, as well as another link to a spreadsheet that will facilitate the scoring process.

PBSS Staff Discipline Questionnaire
Discipline Scale Results Spreadsheet

Identifying and Organizing Staff Skills and Expertise into a Consultant Resource Directory

The School-Based Professional Resource Survey:  Explanation and Implementation

    Schools and districts rarely know the level of skills and expertise that they have on their faculties.  One way to identify this information is to create a directory outlining the instructional and intervention backgrounds, experiences, and skills of a school’s staff by periodically asking them (e.g., once every three years) to complete a simple two-page questionnaire.  On this questionnaire, staff can provide the following information:  their formal degrees and areas of certification or specialization, their formal areas of in-service training and professional development, academic and/or behavioral areas of expertise, and their special skills or talents or hobbies.  This information can then be combined to create a Consultant Resource Directory.  This Technical Assistant paper explains how to create a Consultant Resource Directory, and it provides a sample questionnaire that can be used for staff completion.

Consultant Resource Survey

    This second document provides a protocol for collecting the information used in the Consultant Resource Directory through SurveyMonkey or a similar web-based survey approach.

Consultant Resource Survey for Survey Monkey

Observing Classroom Climate, Safety, and Student Discipline using Brief Classroom Walk-Throughs

Evaluating Classroom Climate, Safety, and Classroom Management using Brief Classroom Walk-Throughs

    Collecting systematic behavioral observation data is essential to understanding what is actually happening in the classroom relative to both students and teachers.  Data from behavioral observations of teachers provide a real-time look at their effective instruction and classroom management interactions, and those that need improvement.  
    The Effective Classroom Management Walk-Through (CWT) protocol was developed for principals or others who want to determine the degree of positive, effective, and proactive classroom management approaches in classrooms across their school.  Based on educational and behavioral research, the Effective Classroom Management CWT protocol involves 23 items organized in three areas:  the Evidence of Teacher’s Effective Classroom Management area, the Students’ Positive Behavioral Interactions and Respect area, and the Classroom Safety and Security area.  The first behavioral observation document provides this CWT protocol and describes how to use it.

Classroom Walk Through Behavioral Final

How to Evaluate Students’ Academic and Behavioral Progress on a Quarterly Basis, and a School’s Student Assessment Processes on an Annual Basis

Conducting Annual School Review of Student Progress Monitoring and Quarterly Student Achievement Review (Q-STAR) Meetings to Evaluate All Students’ Academic and Behavioral Progress:  Process, Preparation, and Implementation
    With all of the assessment information and data that are collected, formally and informally, on different students by different people at different times, it is important for school personnel to periodically review their data collection processes and whether or not these processes are helping students to progress over time.  Relative to the former area, this Technical Assistance paper describes how to conduct an annual (in April) review of the school’s response-to-instruction and intervention data collection and analysis process.  Relative to the latter area, the paper describes how to conduct Quarterly STudent Achievement Reviews (Q-STARs) that systematically track the academic and social, emotional, and behavioral achievement of every student in the school.

Quarterly Data Meeting TA Paper

   In addition to this TA paper, the link below provides an Excel spreadsheet that can be used as a “Virtual Data Wall” that tracks the status and progress of individual students during a school year.  This spreadsheet can also be used to evaluate the number and types of assessments being used in a school as part of the annual review of student progress monitoring approaches.

Document coming soon.

Webinar on RtI
Using Response-to-Instruction and Intervention to Facilitate Effective Classrooms and Successful Students:  Integrating Academic and Behavioral Prevention and Intervention.

     Response-to-Instruction and Intervention (RtI)²  involves evaluating the degree that students (a) master academic material in response to effective instruction, and (b) demonstrate appropriate, prosocial behavior in response to effective classroom management.  When students are not progressing or “responding” to effective instructional conditions, academically or behaviorally, RtI includes a functional assessment/problem solving process to determine the reason(s) for the lack of success, and the implementation of strategic through intensive interventions to help those students progress and be successful.  
    This webinar, presented by Dr. Howie Knoff, Director of the SPDG, describes an integrated evidence-based blueprint that guides effective classroom instruction and behavior management.  The blueprint includes respective academic and behavioral “service and support” cascades to insure that at-risk, underachieving, or unsuccessful students receive the strategic instruction or intervention needed when they do not respond in the effective classroom.  It also addresses a data-based functional assessment process that determines why students are having academic or behavioral difficulties so that high success interventions can follow.  All of this is guided by an early intervention team process.
Click on Webinar Link Here

Webinar on School-wide Positive Behavioral Support Systems
Response-to-Intervention (RtI) and Behavior:  Designing and Implementing Evidence-Based Positive Behavioral Support Systems in Schools and Districts
    Today’s school-wide Positive Behavioral Support approaches are more specific, integrated, effective, and comprehensive than ever before.  Presented by Dr. Howie Knoff, Director of the SPDG, this webinar describes the components and specific elements of Project ACHIEVE’s evidence-based Positive Behavioral Self-Management System (PBSS) that (a) addresses the prevention, intervention, and intensive needs of challenging students, and (b) is fully consistent with ESEA and IDEA.  Six critical components are discussed during the webinar that make up the PBSS:  (a) the Stop & Think Social Skills Program; (b) the development of grade-level and building-wide accountability systems; (c) how to increase staff and student consistency; (d) the analysis of “special situations”-- behavioral situations that occur in the common areas of a school and/or that involve peer-mediated teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, and physical aggression; (e) crisis prevention, intervention, and response; and (f) the importance of home and community outreach.  In the end, this webinar describes a functional, effective, and comprehensive school-wide system that maximizes students’ academic engagement and achievement, creates safe school environments and positive school climates, increases students’ prosocial skills, and decreases discipline referrals to the office and school suspensions and expulsions.
Click on Webinar Link Here