This blog post is part of a series on your improvement engine—make sure you have a great improvement engine (purpose, perspective, process, plan, and practices) before you start working on your improvement goal!
Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash
Intentionally and thoroughly address root causes of each of your accreditation recommendations! Why?
(1) Because addressing root causes helps students, staff, and leaders at your international Christian school to get flourishing.
(2) Because addressing root causes increases the likelihood that you’ll address the actual problem, prevent future problems, and achieve lasting change.
(3) Because not addressing root causes increases the likelihood that you’ll address symptoms of the problem, face the problem again, and achieve temporary change.
(4) Because addressing root causes is a best practice.
Let me ask you another question: In the chart below, which international Christian school is more likely to actually improve?
| School #1 | School #2 |
| Proactively frames the recommendations as an opportunity to help students, staff, and leaders flourish | Reacts to the recommendations with urgency and possibly thinks of the recommendations as something the staff is forced to do |
| Focuses on prevention (addressing root causes) and on completing the recommendations | Focuses on getting done with the recommendations |
| Documents root causes | Doesn’t document root causes |
| Intentionally and thoroughly addresses root causes in the plan and completes the recommendations | Gets done with the recommendations |
My answer? School #1.
While both schools get the recommendations done, School #2 places too much emphasis on getting done, on urgency. School #2 is about, for example, getting rid of the weeds by pulling off the tops of the weeds (not the roots)—which is sort of like students who work for grades (not learning). Not good.
Meanwhile, School #1 sees recommendations as an opportunity to grow, to prevent problems, to address root causes. School #1, for example, is about getting rid of the weeds by pulling up the weeds by the roots and by putting weed killer on the yard—which is sort of like students who focus on learning (while getting good grades).
Your turn—for each recommendation you received from your last accreditation visit, ask yourself the following questions:
(1) What are the root causes of this recommendation? Possible root causes include unhelpful mindsets, insufficient staffing, inadequate policies and processes, faulty assumptions and misunderstandings, a lack of training/expertise, and insufficient shared understanding of a given facet of Christian education (for example, curriculum, well-being, using student assessment data, and helping students grow strong in Jesus).
(2) To what degree is our School Improvement Engine (purpose, perspective, process, plan, and practices) a root cause of this recommendation?
(3) To what degree will we actually improve if we complete this recommendation without thoroughly addressing the root causes?
(4) To what extent does our improvement plan thoroughly address root causes of this accreditation recommendation?
(5) Now what?
Here are some related resources:
- What role does reflection play in your international Christian school’s improvement?
- When you want to more effectively improve, what do you need to do?
- To what extent do your purpose, perspective, process, plan, and practices actually help you improve?
- School Improvement Reflection Protocol
- School Improvement Framework
Bottom line: Intentionally and thoroughly address root causes when you want to improve!
Get flourishing!
Michael
Get Flourishing 