Mission:

Connect your work to your school’s mission.

Your missions statement is:
The mission of Yelm High School is to develop responsible and contributing members of society.

Step Two: Elements

Current Critical Data Element:
What indicator of school success are you trying to positively impact? Grades? Test Scores? Attendance? Promotion rates? Postsecondary going rate?

The School Improvement Team has identified this critical data element to try to impact at the extension school:

1.       Retention rates;

2.       improve WASL scores in Science;

3.       and Increase graduation rates. 

Step Three:  Analyze

Analyze the data to see what it reveals, to identify the problem areas, to establish your baseline, and to set your goal.  It may be necessary to disaggregate the data, e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, SES, teacher assignment.

Goal:  Where do you want to the data element to be in a year?

Goal:  Where do you want to the data element to be in a year?

Increase WASL scores in Science by 2.5%

    Decrease Dropout Rate by 2%

    Increase Graduation Rate by .7%

Step Four: Stakeholders-Unite

Develop an Action Plan
School counselors, as managers of resources, join existing groups of stakeholders, such as the school improvement team, or bring other stakeholders and resources into the task of creating and implementing an action plan.  Strategies are developed that will change systems as well as impact individual students and targeted groups of students.

Stakeholders

Strategies
Connect your strategies to the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Standards and the ASCA National Model

Beginning date: 2005-2006 school year
Ending date: 2006-2007 school year

Administrators

Provide professional development days for staff so that they can learn techniques to motivate and engage students to see the value of education and science.

Principal

 Hire qualified teachers with a background in science.

School Counselors

• Provide study skills groups in regards to science.

• Review student class selections so that by 10^th grade they have been enrolled in a Basic Science Course.

• Have a Career Day highlighting all of the careers that require Science.  Motivate and Engage kids to appreciate Science.

• Provide an in-class guidance lesson highlighting the benefits of a high school diploma on earning potential, community college, and College Degree. 

• Provide guidance and develop a plan for each youth that appears to be in jeopardy of dropping out.

Teachers

• Use approved research based curriculum that is in line with the EARLS

• Utilize supplemental material such as NOVA Net or Cable in the Classroom to help motivate and engage students in science.

• Have students research their goal job to determine what it will take to achieve that. 

• Have students participate in the district science Fair.

Parents

• Send information home with parents on how they can support their children and educate them regarding the benefits of a high school diploma.

Volunteers

• Recruit college science majors to volunteer and tutor students that received less than a 25% score.

Business Partners

• Get businesses to donate Pizza, espressos, movie tickets, movie rentals, music downloads, etc. for students that achieve science achievement goals.

Students

• Have students participate in a needs assessment in regards to  the graduation rate, low science scores and increasing drop out rate.

• Problem solve with students on what interventions should take place.

Step Five: Reanalyze, Reflect, and Revise
(copied out of School Counselor Accountability a Measure of Student Success)

Step Six:  Educate

Disseminate to internal and external stakeholders the changes in the targeted data elements that show the positive impact the school counseling program is having on student success.  Publicizing the results of an effective school counseling program is a vital step in the accountability process and key to garnering support for your program.

The use of school-wide data demonstrated school counselor support for the school mission, student success, and a desire to affect school improvement by positively impacting the system.