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VLA Evaluation

Patricia St. John

Seattle Pacific University

EDAD 6850

12/6/16

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This paper is an analysis of Academy Schools and the current leadership of the school.

Academy Schools is a pre-k-12th grade school and has 70 students enrolled in the 2016-17 school

year.

Description of the School

The area of attendance for this school is the greater Pudget Sound area this includes the

East side and King and Pierce counties. The school is located in Tukwila in a business area and

close to downtown Tukwila. Businesses in the area are the Teamster’s Union and a security

company. There are also several mini marts in the area and a gas station. The socio economic

status of the students is higher income houses, as the students must pay tuition to enroll in the

school. Most families have incomes greater than $100,000 a year for the households. Ethnicity of

the students is varied with 48% of the school being Caucasian and the remaining ethnicities

consist of Arabian, Egyptian, Asian, Black and Hispanic. The faculty of the school is mostly

Caucasian women with ¼ of the staff being male and there is an African American employed as

well as one Asian woman. 80% of the staff have higher degrees, several with PHDs.

Mission and Vision

The mission is “Academy Schools recognizes that each child learns in his or her own

unique way.  We provide a nurturing, supportive environment in which children can grow

academically, socially, and emotionally.  Our commitment to small class sizes affords students

the opportunity to work one-on-one with teachers and participate in hands-on learning

experiences.  Our goal is to create a life-long passion for learning and a commitment to

understanding self and others in this rapidly changing world.”

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The school vision is “The vision of Academy Schools is the consistent guideline in all

that we do, from staff selection, curriculum, enrollment standards, grading, reporting, as well as

intervention strategies to assure the best quality education, providing personalized attention to all

students. Everything we do refers back to our mission as a double-check to assure we remain true

to our founding goals in all operational processes.

We have found an educational system that prepares today’s children for greatness in the

future.” As the school is a private school it is not part of a district.

School-wide Visioning Processes

The mission and vision have been in existence for many years and were fine-tuned during

the accreditation process in the last 10 years. The mission statement and vision were created as

something that changes over time and is aligned to the strategic process. These were developed

by the board and teachers in a collaborative effort.

General decisions are made by the principal of the school and she reports to a board. The

board makes some decisions but on a day to day basis the principal is the one making decisions

in a top down model. There is some collaboration with the principal in hiring and the principal

can’t do anything without the board’s approval and she often involves other teachers in decision

making.

The vision of the school is sustained through revisiting the mission and vision throughout

the planning process.

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Student Assessment Trends

Grade 1 Word

Reading

93%

Sentence

computation

54%

Reading

Composite

81%

Spelling

93.6%

Math

Computation

86.6%

Grade 2 75% 67.55 71% 56% 37.5%

Grade 4 44% 62% 37.75% 34.5% 36%

Grade 5 22% 19.8% 20% 23.22% 5.42%

Grade 6 66% 52.25% 59% 62.5% 23.75%

Grade 7 65.78% 82% 55% 11.025% 53%

Grade 9 19% 19% 19% 9% 2%

This is the information I was able to get from the school of standardized scores that they

use. It is not complete. They have been using the RAT test and find it to be undesirable for our

students as it is timed. Many of our students come to us from self contained classrooms and have

had no individualized instruction at all. We also have a large number of new students each year

and a large number leave our system. Many of the students if you look at the individual data in

several areas they test 2-3 years above their grade level, in the 90%, but we also have new

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students how have just joined us from self contained classrooms who have never been taught

anything by the public school system factored in there too. One student this year has gone from

kindergarten to 2nd grade in the first trimester. She has not been evaluated on the RAT test but

rather a battery of tests to specifically designed for her, as many of our students are evaluated.

The RAT test is no longer being used and we are currently looking for a new testing method that

meets the needs of our students. In our school it is important to remember that we take largely

Autistic children and children of very high intelligence with behavior issues and standardized

testing does not accurately demonstrate what these children are capable of. This year we are

searching for a new testing tool that we can use.

The college attendance rate is 100% of graduating seniors. All graduating seniors go on

to some form of secondary schooling whether it is a trade school or 4 year university. All

students in 12th grade graduate every year.

There are very few discipline problems in the school, and only this year is there a

tracking program for student behavior. In the last 5 years there has been 1 suspension, 1 formal

discipline in the last 2 years and ‘some’ in school suspensions, but there hasn’t been a tracking

system for these until this year. Attendance is good with most students attending without

problems, but there is not data available as the new system for tracking this has been

implemented this year.

Relevant Specialized Programs

There are two students enrolled in special education at the school. There is no ELL

program at the school and there is no advanced program. The school offers special programs at

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the school for extra fees including speech and language therapy, occupational therapy,

counseling music therapy and tutoring. The impact that these programs have on the students is

positive and supportive.

The Purposes and Rationale for a Site specific Vision for Learning

The vision is consistent over the years. As there is no district the vision stands alone as a

guide for our school. The vision right now is formed and shaped by the school board and this

inclusive shared vision is intended to help each child succeed in all ways and be successful at

school. The board also takes into account teacher’s and faculty’s ideas and opinions when

shaping the vision. The children who graduate from this school all go onto secondary schooling,

and the vision is consistent with supporting the children at the school. Each child in the school

has their own learning goals and the more experienced members of the board help the teachers

plan and support the students in the classroom and through extra support outside of the

classroom. While this is very time consuming for administration and teachers alike the practice

really does support each child to success on their own timeline. The type of management that is

employed to support this vision is very high in personal relationships and tasks. A lot of thought

and effort is put into building relationships between the board and the administration and staff in

general. Teachers also put lots of effort and time into building relationships with students.

Looking at the vision we can see these values reflected “providing personalized attention to all

students”. We see this in the class size and the amount of time that is spent with each child

through the day. Each class is specifically structured and students are placed where they need to

be socially and academically.

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The development of the vision is not a collaborative process for the staff. Though many

policies are developed collaboratively with both staff and students. This last year the staff sought

to make a code of conduct for the students and while a majority of the work was done by two

delegates they brought the code to the staff and student population for input and ideas of what

should and should not be included.

While it is fine to get input from a variety of sources I think this project was over-

collaborated on. This is a trend that I see in the school, that while there is a lot of top-down

leadership when the school decides to collaborate they do too much of it and try to include

everyone’s ideas and thoughts when really not everyone needs to have input into the process.

However the process of collaboration for each student among administration and teachers does

create a strong learning environment that upholds the vision and creates very successful students.

How the leader builds a shared understanding and commitment among stakeholders

The objectives and strategies used to implement the school vision include collaboration,

the development of relationships and outreach into the community. The parents of the school

have a strong voice as it is a private school and teachers must listen to the parents and parents are

given a say in how the vision is shared and how it is used to shape the school. Currently the

leader of the school builds understanding and commitment among stakeholders through the use

of a PTO, including parents in decision making and also through the use of volunteer hours. I

think it would be helpful to hold more community events and reach out into the broader

community through the use of student led projects and also have the students volunteer in the

community as part of their education. This would help build relationships and commitment for

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the students and also show stakeholders that our school values volunteering and help them

understand the reason for volunteering in our school.

The systems of the school are not greatly affected by our shared vision. We have a vision,

we look to make sure our school supports the vision, but it is not at the forefront of our systems

in the school. We never refer to our vision at meetings and we don’t talk about it or how our

school is supporting the vision. This could change in the school. The vision should be front and

center of all that we do in the school. Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation (Owens &

Valesky, 2015) could be employed to help the systems of the school to work together, teachers

need the motivating factors as well as the maintenance to excel in their work, and work to their

full potentials. One of the motivating factors should be our vision and we should be motivated to

make this vision prominent and successful in our school, but rather we ignore it and push ahead.

Academy schools is not a data driven school. When I questioned our principal about how

data shapes the vision and programs she stated that the school is more observational than data

driven. Very little data has been collected through the years and it is not organized into any sort

of useful format. This is changing this year as the school has implemented a new tracking system

into use that tracks student information, grades, test scores and all sorts of information that most

schools keep track of year to year. The school has also grown quite a bit this last year and now

has 69 students enrolled in the school. Being a small school the school has not kept detailed

records and has been using the ‘observational’ method of creating plans and programs and

shaping the vision. I’m happy to see the implementation of the school tracking system, so that we

might be able to keep track of all this data that will give us a competitive edge in the private

school system. This year we also started grading students on standards and are starting to

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function like a school that is competitive and able to stand up to public schools and other private

schools. I think that the shift this year from observational to data driven isn’t totally the answer,

one of the things that makes our school unique is that we are not data driven, and our students

typically do very well academically and socially. The answer lies in the middle, we should take

our data into consideration, but not lose our observations in the process. “The process of

reinventing begins with the leader who creates, within him- or herself, a new vision of what the

school should become in the near future and beyond” (Owens & Valesky, 2015) and this is what

I think is happening at our school.

While the vision of our school is not really at the center of what we do, this is not to say

that our leader does not try to keep the vision moving along with involving stakeholders in the

school. The vision is a shared entity, if you read page 15 of Owens and Valesky’s 2015 book,

Organizational Behavior in Education, you will see that the vision has to be shared among the

stakeholders and cannot just be that of the principal. Though we have a fairly bureaucratic

command, we do a lot of collaboration and everyone has a voice in our school. Through this our

leader promotes stakeholders to share the vision and have a say in our school. I think in some

ways more collaboration would be beneficial, but when the staff at the school starts collaborating

they often go overboard with getting absolutely everyone’ s input and this gets out of control

quite quickly. I would like to create some committees and have them in charge of the things we

often leave up to collaboration, rather than having all of the stakeholders involved, just make a

few committees that have the power and authority to make the decision and do so in a way that

listens to the community without getting out of hand.

How the vision uniquely serves the needs of students, staff and community.

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The vision is not necessarily used to facilitate communication, nurture and maintain trust and

develop collaboration among stakeholders. The vision is rarely talked about in the school, and

when I went to find it, it’s on the website but it’s not really prominent or spoken of in other

areas. Communication is fostered through relationships in the school and the mission statement

focuses on creating and maintaining relationships with the students and helping them learn in

unique ways. The vision needs to be promoted more, it should be displayed in the school and

referred to when talking with parents and at staff meetings. When I was hired on there was no

mention of the vision or mission statement, and they staff does not refer to either at all. It is

important for a leader to be connected to the students, staff and community and to do this they

need to have a vision that they are personally invested in and that helps them to nurture and

maintain trust (Owens & Valesky, 2015, p.24-26). Without being personally invested in the

vision it is hard for a leader to use it to facilitate anything. I think the vision needs to be rewritten

and worded in such a way as to promote communication and trust and collaboration. I think a

committee of teachers and parents and administrators should be formed and rewrite the mission

statement and vision so that they reflect the administrative standards of the day, instead of using

a vision that has been stagnant for the last 10 years.

Leadership Disposition

I know that there are many ways to lead. A teacher leads a classroom, a principal leads

teachers. It is important for these leaders to have the foundational knowledge of how a school

works from the ground up. Through this work they develop the skills, knowledge and cultural

competence that they need to be an effective leader in today’s schools. I feel that the success of

every student is extremely critical and that ultimately is the goal of schools, is for students to

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learn and succeed. This standard of being able to have a vision and carry it forward is the mark

of an organized and compassionate leader.

The educactability of all students is something that this school strives for, that it was

made for. I feel that all students can be taught we just have to figure out how. All students can

learn and it is up to the leadership team to figure out how to reach each child no matter what the

cost. Some children may need a different school, a different environment. Not every school can

meet the needs of every child.

I think that the high standards of learning are important. No matter where our students

come to us from, and in the school I come from they often come from a place that seems quite

dismal. It is important to hold that child to high standards and support them in meeting those

standards. Once you have committed yourself there is no way you can desert them until they

meet that standard.

Continuous school improvement is important to me, schools should always be moving

forward and striving toward excellence. Even though your children might be in the 90%

percentile of everything there is still room for improvement. We can always be better teachers,

better educators and more involved in our communities.

Being culturally responsive means being sensitive to the needs of the students and their

parents. You cannot just be culturally responsive in the classroom and think that it end there.

You must also extend this to your community outreach and how you run your school.

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Ensuring the success of every student is the goal of the administrator. They should

support the teacher anyway they can and make sure that all students are meeting the standards set

out for them. It is important that the administrator remain connected to the classrooms so that

they can have an idea of what is going on and major projects.

A leader should always be continually evaluating their own assumptions, beliefs and

practices. This can be done with reflection with others, self reflection and looking back on the

practices that have been done by the leader and what could have been better. What could have

been better executed. Since hindsight is 20/20 it’s easy to learn from reflection and a leader

should be continually reflecting on what they have done and then thinking about how this will

affect what they will do.

Every student has the right to a free quality education. At the school I teach at now we

have several students who have been granted that right through the court and are now at our

school as functioning students. These students who were deemed ‘unteachable’ are passing

classes and excelling in areas where others had given up. All students should be given an

environment that allows them to learn and excel to the highest degree.

When making decisions in a school you have to remember that you are making

decisions in a student based environment. All of the decisions you make should be in the best

interest of the students. If these decisions don’t support the students then why are you making

those decisions? The goal of the school is to educate. Adults, children, staff that’s what a school

does. We are educators and if we aren’t doing that then how are we to bring ethical decision

making into the process?

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A principal or teacher leader should be a supporter. You should be supporting the

teachers in your school. You should be supporting the parents and leaders in eh community. You

should not be dictating from a podium and telling people what they should be doing. A leader

gives out responsibility to others and then has trust that it will happen and makes sure to support

that person in the task that they have been given.

I think that the ethical principles that I bring to the decision making process are going

to depend partly on group that I am working with. You can’t just come in with a set of ideas and

no flexibility in your thinking for a group and expect that your ideas are going to work for every

situation. It’s important to look at the situation that you’re coming into and what the situation

requires, even if you’ve been there for a while, it’s still important to remain flexible in your

thinking and use ethics that are called for by the situation. This is the same as suborning one’s

own interest to the good of the school community. Sometimes you have to do what’s best for the

school. This means examining your ethics and your interests and doing what is best in the

interest of the school instead of what you want.

When you do what you think is the best for the school you will have to accept the

consequences for upholding your principles and actions. This means that you might have to

justify yourself to some people and why you did what you did. When accepting the consequences

you need to remain open to criticism and listen to those who are giving feedback.

It is the job of those in charge of the school to promote education for all students. The

goal of all schools is to educate people. This includes the families of the students that attend the

school. The people in charge of the school are supposed to constructively and productively

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support the learning of all students and the inclusion of all families in the process of all learning

that is happening in the school.

The school should be a caring place because the goal of the school is to be a place

where students can learn. The community should include their parents and all those people who

are interested in the child’s development. Using the influence of the office should be in the best

interest of as many children as possible. It is not possible to cover every child in the school no

matter how hard you try, but the goal should be to get to as many children as possible. The goal

should also be to include as many families as possible and find the ways in which they are the

most included in the school.

The development of a caring school community should be at the top of the leader’s

priority list. They should be creating a caring school community through the use of good

leadership tools and inclusiveness in the community. The school community should support each

child and their family in the education of each child. Each school should work to create a

community where people are welcome and supported in the school.

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References

Owens, R., & Valesky, T. (2015). Organizational behavior in education leadership and school reform. New Jersy, NJ: Pearson.