Who Are We Planning For? Educator and Leader Perceptions of School Improvement Planning

• In Event: Innovation and Improvement in Schools

Abstract

The current climate of school improvement (SI) planning is laden with tensions, leaving educators and leaders balancing accountability compliance, organizational improvement, and social justice agendas. We used a hermeneutic phenomenology methodology to uncover the ways in which educators and leaders experience and process these tensions in their own improvement planning. We found that school improvement plans are often written to comply with external accountability policies. As a counter narrative to compliance, educators and leaders often have both formal and informal SIP processes where informal planning is more growth-focused and individualized to school context, however, there remains a hesitancy in engaging families and communities in SI planning, limiting the use of SIP for social justice aims.

Authors

• Meredith Wronowski, University of Dayton

• Corinne Brion, University of Dayton