Leaders, how can you help your colleagues deeply understand what an ACSI Inspire self-study is and the role it plays?

/ mkessenburg

Photo by Christina Morillo

Leaders, help your colleagues deeply understand what an ACSI Inspire self-study is and the role it plays. Why?

(1) Because understanding helps your colleagues flourish.

(2) Because helping your colleagues understand increases the likelihood that they will fully engage with and actually enjoy your ACSI Inspire self-study, and the likelihood that the self-study process will actually help them flourish.

(3) Because not helping your colleagues understand increases the likelihood of them just going through the motions for the self-study, or just doing the self-study to maintain accreditation (which is like students just studying in order to get good grades, not to learn), or being both frustrated and miserable. Not good.

(4) Because helping others understand is a best practice.

Photo by Wolfgang Rottmann on Unsplash

So, let me ask you 3 questions. 

Question 1: How would you describe what an ACSI Inspire self-study is and the role it plays? Here’s how I might describe it: An ACSI Inspire self-study is a holistic, standards-based assessment that is part of our school improvement system.

(A) Holistic: It addresses purpose, well-being, relationships, teaching/learning, expertise, and resources. This holistic approach is different from the approach used for a professional development plan and an annual evaluation. 

*Tip: To help others understand this holistic approach, you might want to replace professional development plans with holistic Personalized Flourishing Plans.

(B) Standards-based assessment: This is similar to what students experience. Teachers prepare students for assessments that give students the opportunity to show their achievement of the standards. For language arts, these standards fit into 4 domains: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. For ACSI Inspire, these standards fit into 6 domains: purpose, well-being, relationships, teaching/learning, expertise, and resources.

*Tip: Leaders, think of staff as your students and your school as your classroom. Then think of an accreditation self-study as a classroom assessment.

(C) That is part of: An ACSI Inspire self-study is just 1 part of our school improvement system—it’s not our system. Other parts of our school improvement system include professional development, the curriculum review cycle, policy governance monitoring reports, surveys, financial audits, and progress reports.

*Tip: Leaders, be sure that everyone understands the parts of your school improvement system—that will make it easier for them to understand how a self-study is just 1 part, not the system.

(D) Our school improvement system: Our school improvement system is our ongoing, collaborative, focused, systematic approach to enhancing (A) the holistic flourishing of our students, staff, and leaders and (B) our institutional effectiveness. It includes professional development, curriculum review, assessing how we’re doing in terms of flourishing and institutional effectiveness, using our assessment data to develop action plans, implementing the action plans, assessing/celebrating progress, and determining next steps.

*Tip: Just like teaching, school improvement is ongoing, collaborative, focused, and systematic, with the focus on holistic flourishing. It’s not a 1-shot thing. And it’s a system, not a goal: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems” (James Clear).

*Another tip: Leaders, you can help others understand a school improvement system by first making sure they each have a foundation of personal experience with improvement efforts—like scheduled self-assessment of responsibilities, regular reflection on professional development goals (or personalized flourishing goals), frequent coaching and feedback, and so forth.

Question 2: How can you help your colleagues deeply understand what school improvement is about? I’d like to invite you to consider developing a School Improvement Framework that addresses these 7 questions: 

(1) What’s the relationship between Christian education and holistic flourishing?

(2) What is school improvement and how is it related to students, staff, and leaders holistically flourishing?

(3) What is a school improvement system?

(4) What makes a good school improvement system good?

(5) What’s our system for school improvement?

(6) What helps us stay deeply focused on using school improvement (A) to get people holistically flourishing and (B) to increase institutional effectiveness?

(7) What does staying deeply focused on using school improvement (A) to get people holistically flourishing and (B) to increase institutional effectiveness look like?

Photo by Irham Setyaki on Unsplash

Question 3: What will you do? Try this—access the School Improvement Framework and look at it for 10 minutes. In addition to the 7 questions, the School Improvement Framework includes sample responses, ChatGPT prompts, and a list of resources.

Here are some related resources on school improvement and accreditation:

Get flourishing!

Michael
P.S. Be sure to check out the School Improvement Framework!