Hello ,

Is your school flourishing? Can you do better? Many times, schools become too focused on the day-to-day operation and issues of their institution without pausing to check the pulse of their school. Schools can find themselves driven by milestones in their calendar or moving from crisis to crisis, with no short- or long-term plans to resolve current challenges or look down the road to proactively prepare for future challenges and improvement.

Schools need a plan that maximizes their strengths, foresees threats, reduces weaknesses, and takes advantage of future opportunities. Effective schools need to lay out a road map to achieve their mission and vision; moving away from being "reactive" - solving today's problems - towards being "proactive" - eliminating problems in the future and taking advantage of opportunities. You need a framework that enables your board and administration to focus and coordinate your resources, work towards common goals, assess and adjust as you move forward, and focuses your board's priorities and duties, and inspires your staff and community.

In many cases, a strategic plan should be the answer. A school is most effective when the diverse resources of your organization are aligned by a common vision, mission, strategies, goals, and action plans.  

However, many schools don't have the luxury of taking a school year to methodically prepare their plan or afford the costs of retaining an experienced firm. Yet there is a need to establish a plan.

An alternative is a more timely evaluation of your school's performance against effective school benchmarks and follow-up recommendations, strategies, and action plan to guide school improvement immediately.

HEG's evaluation process identifies areas needing short- and long-term improvement, and a summary providing a concise set of strategies to guide leadership with ongoing development and improvement, growth, and sustainability. Our evaluation process focuess on the following benchmarks of effective school performance:

1. School's Overall Effectiveness;
2. Marketing, Admissions, and Retention Systems;
3. Teaching/Learning Practices;
4. Human Resources;
5. Care, Guidance, and Support for Students;
6. School Leadership and Management;
7. Physical Plant, Grounds, and Resources.
8. Infrastructure and Operations;
9. Communications and Community Relations;
10. Finance and Operations; and 
11. Current and ongoing development of the International Baccalaureate Program.

To establish an accurate snapshot of your school's performance, HEG uses a four-step process:

1. On-site focus group interviews and observations;
2. One-on-one interview with Board and Administration;
3. Online school community surveys (Staff, Parents, and Board); and
4. Review of pertinent School documents. .

Our Process 

Our methodology involves an on-site evaluation of your school to analyze key performance benchmarks, along with the development and delivery of our Summary Report. Once our on-site focus sessions, interviews, and performance analysis are confirmed, HEG will request a list of documents. Once we receive these materials, our Consultants will become immersed in your school's long before arriving on-site. By spending the time preparing for our visit, we will already have a broad understanding of the issues and concerns the school is facing.

We will break the evaluation process into three parts:  

1). Research Analysis (Internal/External Situation):

• Collect/review school data prior to our onsite visit to assess the school's present situation.
• Statistically-Driven Online Surveys for staff/faculty, parents, and Board of Directors to gather data on School performance prior to the onsite visit.

2). Focus Group Sessions /Classroom Observations with key constituents of the school community to assess the school's strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities and trends.

3). Summative Report: Develop a customized report that identifies areas needing immediate focus and the 'roll-out' of a set of multiple recommendations, strategies, and action plan to enhance the Schools' overall development. This will include strategies, timing, and designated staff, and Appendices with the survey questionnaires. Based on the report, HEG will prioritize areas that need immediate attention based on the following benchmarks:

• Determination Of The School's Overall Effectiveness (Strengths, Weaknesses);
• Teaching /Learning Practices (Educational programming, standards, resources, student achievement, and personal/social development);
• Human Resources (Recruitment, evaluation systems, contracts, compensation, and professional development);
• Care, Guidance, & Support (School climate, student services, guidance resources, safety and well-being of students);
• Marketing, Admissions, & Retention Systems (sustainable enrollment growth);
• School Leadership & Management (Board governance practices, management practices and qualifications Strategic plan and operation plan);
• Physical Plant & Grounds (Buildings, maintenance, resources/technology, safety, and utility)
• Infrastructure (Institutional policies, procedures, Accreditation Compliance, and practices and crisis management);
• Communications & Community Relations (Community engagement, parent participation and communication;
• Finance & Operations (Determining financial resources and needs, budget preparation, and controls).