We have to complete a School Improvement Plan for the city and state by October 13th. It’s a little tough because it is not a document that is meant for new schools, but we thought we’d take it as an opportunity to reexamine our plans through the lens of the SIP document.

So we started looking at all of the things we’ve been building over the past year of planning and now into implementation. I’m not sure this list will not mean as much outside of our staff model, but with every thing we’ve listed, there are hours of planning that have gone into it. But for us, listing everything up on this board and talking about how each of these ideas / features / concepts will enhance learning and further the SLA vision was a really amazing moment.

There was the moment when we stepped away from the whiteboard and really were amazed at what we’ve done so far.

Then, the moment passed, and we realized how much more work we have to do.

Broad SLA Features
Core values
Project-based inquiry & rubric-based assessment
Integrated curricula & EQs
Weekly PD
Community & national PD
Technology infusion (laptops & Moodle)
Understanding By Design curriculum design
Constructivism
Differentiated learning and co-teaching
Advisory program
Partnership w/ TFI & Drexel
Parental involvement & parent portal
Benchmark projects

Course-specific Features
Partnership w/ Horticultural (Science)
Partnership w/ Moore (Literacy)
Partnership w/ MIT (scratch)
Electives (interdisciplinary/core values)
Summer reading (Literacy)
Student-directed research
Capstone planning
Author chats
Guest-speaker program
21st Cent. Library & online database
Digital portfolio

Miscellaneous
After-school activities
Summer Institute
Reduced teacher load
Lower teacher/student ratio
Small school
CSAP
Distributed leadership