Introduction+2

Four required components:
 * CONTENT OF THE PLAN **
 * Mission
 * Beliefs
 * 2-4 Measurable Student Performance Objectives
 * Action Plans

=**// Mission //**=

A school’s mission should reflect in broad and visionary terms what the school is and is striving to become. It should be outcome based, providing clarity on:


 * the school’s AUDIENCE: whom it currently serves or should serve in the future;
 * its ACTION: what it currently does or should do in the future;
 * its AIM: the current purpose for which it exists or what the school’s purpose should be in the future;
 * its IDENTITY: what makes the school unique;
 * its MEANS / FUNCTION: how, in broad terms, it will do it.

The mission is a clear and concise statement. The mission and beliefs form the foundation for the entire plan and set the direction and focus for the organization.

Beliefs
Belief statements serve as the foundation of a strong strategic plan, providing the value system upon which subsequent portions of the plan will be evaluated. They are the formal expression of a school’s fundamental values and serve as its ethical code. Beliefs describe the moral character of a school.

Because belief statements are a matter of faith, they express the school’s overriding convictions, its inviolate commitments.

The statements of belief should be precise and succinct in language, simply formatted and easily understood. They are declarations of universal human values as held by the people who make up the organization, values they would hold no matter where they were or under what conditions they found themselves, or what business they were conducting.

Objectives
The school must have 2 to 4 measurable student performance objectives in order for the school to be accredited. Schools may submit objectives that are tied to improved student performance in particular subject areas, though there is a trend toward the development of cross-disciplinary objectives.

Specifying clear and measurable student performance objectives identifies the school’s commitment to achieve specific end results and thus, is tied directly to accountability.

The objective must be written in such a way that they outline growth in student performance for the next five years and represent a major focus for student performance in the school. The objectives must be consistent with the mission statement and explicate in measurable terms the key end results that the school seeks to realize from its mission.

__ Objectives Review Process __

Level 1: Objective criteria analyzed by a technical review conducted by the Middle States’ Staff:


 * Is the objective stated as a desired end result in student performance?
 * Is this objective currently measurable?
 * Are multiple forms of assessment used to measure growth in this objective?
 * Is the objective measured by an external assessment?
 * Is the objective related to improvement in an area of academics?
 * Does the objective reflect expected growth in student performance over time?
 * Is the baseline year noted as well as the year when the objective will be realized?

[The technical adviser’s review of the objectives is necessary before a school is approved for a Validation Team’s visit.]

Level 2: Objective criteria analyzed by the Validating Team:


 * How closely are the objectives associated with exit outcomes of the school, graduation requirements or performance objectives for the school?
 * How do the objectives reflect the school’s mission?
 * How do the objectives support the school’s strategic plan?
 * Are the objectives reasonable and achievable?
 * Does the school have sufficient energy and resources to support the implementation of the action plans and the achievement of the objectives?
 * Does the school have an effective and efficient way to gather data to assess the progress of the objectives? Is baseline data currently available, logically organized, and presented in an easily understood format?

Action Plans
The action plans describe the methods the school will use to accomplish the mission and objectives. They provide detailed descriptions of the specific actions required to achieve the specific results necessary to achieve the student performance objectives.

Action plans should be specific and tell in detail how the school will accomplish the objectives. The following must be included:

¨ A description of the activity ¨ The name / title / role of the person(s) or group(s) that will be responsible for this activity ¨ The timeline during which the activity will be accomplished ¨ The resources needed to accomplish the activity in terms of time, materials, funding, etc. ¨ The indicators the school will use to determine whether the activity has been successfully accomplished ¨ The date on which the activity was completed.