1. American Student Achievement Institute
InSAI
VISIONING
American Student Achievement Institute

2. Session 2: Vision Steering Team / Community Council /
Full Faculty / Student Body
1 VISION 2
Vision
Data 4
Data
Target 3
Current
Data
5. Areas of Concern
Guidance Teaching Environment Expectations
Curriculum Content School Policy High Expectations
Relationship Instruction Behavior Management Clear Definitions Assessment Student Assistance Communication
Extra Help / Time Parent Involvement
Community Involvement
Resources
Collegiality
Professional Development
This is the school improvement process used by InSAI called Vision-to-Action. Each time our Steering Team goes to a session, we’ll learn the next few steps of the process. Then, we’ll come home to implement those students with you. 6
Strategies
Selection 8
ACTION
7 STRATEGY PLANS
Implementation Steps
Professional Development
Anti-Resistance
Evaluation
© ASAI

3. American Student Achievement Institute
VISION
A lofty, bold
statement of the way
our school will be if
all of our dreams for
kids come true.
A vision is a lofty, and bold statement of how our school will be if all of our dreams for kids come true. It’s a dream without regard to limits, without a basis in reality. Visioning helps us to imagine what could be, and then work to get there.
Later in the Vision-to-Action process, we’ll work with reality when we select our “Data Target.” The Data Target is a student achievement goal that falls between our current achievement data and our vision.
Note: You may want to return to the Vision-to-Action diagram on slide 2 to show where this step occurs.
American Student Achievement Institute

4. American Student Achievement Institute
VISION vs MISSION
VISION is a detailed description of an ideal world. It’s a lofty and bold dream.
MISSION is a brief statement that says that it’s the aim of the school to move toward the vision.
Sometimes, people want to know what the difference is between a vision and a mission.
A vision is a (read slide)
While a mission is (read slide).
In our work with InSAI, we’ll be focusing on our vision for the future.
American Student Achievement Institute

5. American Student Achievement Institute
VISION vs GOAL
VISION is a detailed description of an ideal world. It’s a lofty and bold dream.
GOAL is a realistic step between the current situation and the vision. It’s reachable within a certain time frame.
It’s also important to understand the difference between a vision and a goal.
While a vision is (read slide),
A goal is (read slide).
This distinction is important because we want to make sure that our vision is not limited by our current perception of reality. Visions are meant to be lofty.
American Student Achievement Institute

6. American Student Achievement Institute
VISION
Painting of your ideal school using words to describe your students
teachers,
school,
and
community.
Another way to think of a vision is as a painting of our school using words to describe our students, teachers, school and community.
American Student Achievement Institute

7. Without a common vision, the school becomes a
Jerry Bamberg
Without a common vision,
the school becomes a
“collection of cottage industries operating in isolation
under the same roof.”
Source: Jerry Bamburg, North Central Regional Educational Laboratory
A vision is a lofty, and bold statement of how our school will be if all of our dreams for kids come true. It’s a dream without regard to limits, without a basis in reality. Visioning helps us to imagine what could be, and then work to get there.
Later in the Vision-to-Action process, we’ll work with reality when we select our “Data Target.” The Data Target is a student achievement goal that falls between our current achievement data and our vision.
American Student Achievement Institute

8. PRACTICAL REASONS FOR VISIONING
Raises expectations
Common purpose / direction
Creates energy for change
Focuses on the future
No blame for the past
Focuses on students
Foundation for decision making
While visions are lofty, there are lots of practical reasons for visioning.
Visioning helps us raise our expectations for schools and students. Not restrained by limits or reality, we are able to imagine a new world in which all students are wildly successful. We are no longer limited by constraints. As James Broughton stated, “The only limits are, as always, those of vision.”
Having a common vision gives us a common direction. It helps us to join forces toward a common goal. Once we have developed our vision, then each of us (teachers, parents, community members, students) contributes what we can to help our students move toward that vision. It is ensures that the direction of the school is not funding-driven or individual-driven. Regardless of changes in funding or personnel, the school can remain true to its direction because the direction is linked to a vision, rather than funding or a person.
Visioning creates excitement and energy. Once we have a vision, based on our personal core convictions, we are more likely to have the time and energy for working hard. The vision answers the question, “Why am I teaching, counseling, administering, parenting, supporting?” For many teachers, the vision is a reminder of why they went into education to begin with.
A vision also causes us to focus on the future, rather than the past. This is important. When we’re thinking about the future, we can’t be blaming people for what has happened in the past. Once we have a vision for the future, we can all figure out what part each of us can play in bringing our students closer to that vision.
Finally, our InSAI vision statement will keep us focused on kids as we move through the Vision-to-Action change process.
American Student Achievement Institute

9. American Student Achievement Institute
The Vision Statement
CORE CONVICTIONS
What do we believe
in our hearts  that
all kids deserve?
The InSAI Vision Statement answers four questions.
We’ve already answered the first question: What do we believe all students deserve?
Note: If it has been a while since your groups wrote their core convictions, they should be reviewed at this point. If you’re reproducing the Visioning Activity Sheet, you may want to type your core convictions into this first quadrant before duplicating.
Note: Many schools struggle with the degree to which they should summarize their core convictions. Your goal is to make the core convictions as simple as possible without loosing individual ideas. With that in mind, listing thousands of core convictions would not be helpful because each individual conviction would get lost in the masses. On the other hand, collapsing hundreds of convictions into 1-3 conviction statements would force each conviction to be so broad that it would loses the individual ideas.
Page X
American Student Achievement Institute

10. American Student Achievement Institute
The Vision Statement
If the adults were living by these core convic-tions, what would be their behaviors & attitudes??
CORE CONVICTIONS
What do we believe
in our hearts  that
all kids deserve?
The second question helps us to describe ideal adults in our building.
If the adults are living by their core convictions, what are their attitudes and what are they doing? For example, if one of our core convictions is that all students deserve to be treated with respect, and we really believe that, how would the adults be acting?
This activity is a brainstorm. That means that your group will write down as many answers as you can, as quickly as you can, without discussion. The purpose of a brainstorm is to enhance creativity as one response leads to another. Before you begin, please appoint a “brainstorm police” to stop the group if they start discussing an idea. You’ll have ten minutes to work on this question.
After five minutes, say:
“We want to make sure that you’re thinking broadly as you brainstorm. Be sure to think about these questions:”
(Put up the next slide and let people work for about five more minutes)
American Student Achievement Institute

11. Community Involvement GUIDANCE RELATIONSHIP Community Expectations
Consider these areas . . .
ENVIRONMENT
School Policy
Behavior Management
Student Assistance
Parent Involvement
Community Involvement
Resources
Leadership
GUIDANCE
GUIDANCE CURRICULUM
GUIDANCE RELATIONSHIP
EXPECTATIONS
Faculty Expectations
Parent Expectations
Community Expectations
Student Expectations
TEACHING
Curriculum Content
Instruction
Assessment
Extra Time / Help
(After the groups have been working for about 5 minutes) To make sure we’ve thought about the things kids deserve in many different areas, think about each of these areas for a few seconds. What do students deserve in each of these areas? You have five more minutes to add ideas to your list. Go!
American Student Achievement Institute

12. American Student Achievement Institute
The Vision Statement
If the adults were living by these core convic-tions, what would be their behaviors & attitudes??
CORE CONVICTIONS
What do we believe
in our hearts  that
all kids deserve?
If the adults are living by their core convic-tions, what would be the student behaviors & attitudes?
The third question involves the students.
In a building where the adults are living by their core convictions, what would be the attitudes and behavior of the students? In this section, please brainstorm the ideal student. You have about ten minutes.
American Student Achievement Institute

13. American Student Achievement Institute
The Vision Statement
If the adults were living by these core convic-tions, what would be their behaviors & attitudes??
CORE CONVICTIONS
What do we believe
in our hearts  that
all kids deserve?
If the adults are living by their core convic-tions, what would be the student behaviors & attitudes?
If the students were doing these things, what would be our school’s statistics?
The fourth part of the Vision Statement deals with data.
Think about all the achievement standards (data that measures mastery of content) that we set for students. List those measures and then write the percentage of students who, in our vision, are meeting each of our achievement standards. For example, an achievement standard might be the percentage of students who pass ISTEP (GQE) math and English; the percentage of student passing all classes; or the percentage of third graders reading at grade level.
This is a two step process. First write down the academic standard that you would like students to reach (for example pass ISTEP), then write down the percentage of students you would like to meet that standard.
Be careful that you’re writing down academic goals and not student choice goals. For example, attendance is important but our attendance rate reflects choices the students make (whether or not to come to school) rather than achievement data. Student choice data, like attendance, is important because it influences achievement. We’ll discuss student choice data in another step (Force Field Analysis).
After about five minutes, ask people to share their standards and the percentage of students who are meeting each standard.
Note: Many people will come up with percentages less than 100% Your challenge is to help them think about success for all students. One way to do this is to have anyone who didn’t have 100% turn their papers over and write the names of the students they have selected to not meet this standard. Usually, this is a quick way to help people see that they really do have dreams for all students. Another way to help folks think about 100% of all students is to give an example from the health profession. What if hospitals said that they only had a vision of 98% of their patients living through surgery? What if airlines only had a vision for 95% of their flights not crashing? What if the post office’s vision only included the delivery of 92% of its mail? Hopefully, people will begin to see that the school’s purpose is to educate all students, and the disserve we do to students when schools only dream about educating 92% or 97%.
DISCUSSION:
It might help to remind people that a vision is “dreamy,” and not based in reality. Reality will come with step four of Vision-to-Action (data target).
Some people think there is no practical purpose to visioning because it is so “pie-in-the-sky.” You might want to return to slide four to remind people why you’re doing this “dreamy” work.
Some people are uncomfortable with visioning because they think someone is going to hold them accountable for reaching the vision. It might help to put their fears to rest by telling people that they will not be held accountable for their vision. The expectation is simply that they move toward the vision.
American Student Achievement Institute

14. PL221 / NCLB Required Achievement Data
ALL STUDENTS
% of all ISTEP tests that are passing (all grades)
PL221
% of all students passing ISTEP Math
NCLB
% of all students passing ISTEP Eng/Lang. Arts
ADDITONAL HIGH SCHOOL
% graduating
% of graduates earning a Core 40 Diploma
% of graduates earning an Academic Honors Diploma
% of graduates having ___ (AP)
% of graduates ____ (Core 40 End-of-Course Tests)
High schools have special requirements for category placement.
High schools in all categories will be required to meet a minimum graduation rate (not yet established) that may vary by category.
High Schools in the top two performance categories must also show improvement (rate not yet established) in the percentage of:
a) Advanced Placement (AP) test scores
b) Results of Core 40 end-of-course exams
c) Graduates who earn an Academic Honors Diploma and Core 40 diploma

15. American Student Achievement Institute
InSAI
Vision Brainstorm to
Vision Statement
(see samples)
American Student Achievement Institute

16. Session 2: Vision Steering Team / Community Council /
Full Faculty / Student Body
1 VISION 2
Vision
Data 4
Data
Target 3
Current
Data
5. Areas of Concern
Guidance Teaching Environment Expectations
Curriculum Content School Policy High Expectations
Relationship Instruction Behavior Management Clear Definitions Assessment Student Assistance Communication
Extra Help / Time Parent Involvement
Community Involvement
Resources
Collegiality
Professional Development
This is the school improvement process used by InSAI called Vision-to-Action. Each time our Steering Team goes to a session, we’ll learn the next few steps of the process. Then, we’ll come home to implement those students with you. 6
Strategies
Selection 8
ACTION
7 STRATEGY PLANS
Implementation Steps
Professional Development
Anti-Resistance
Evaluation
© ASAI

17. American Student Achievement Institute
InSAI
VISIONING
American Student Achievement Institute