Operational planning and progress monitoring are two integral actions of successful implementation, and as a Federal Bureau, we honor and value the responsibility for transparency throughout this process.
Operational Planning and Implementation
The operational plan, which includes milestones, actions, and timelines, is developed collaboratively between divisions to align all tasks with the mission, vision, overarching priorities, and strategies in the Strategic Direction. While each party contributes differently to each facet of the plan, coordination is critical to ensure that efforts are complementary and supportive of one another, thus reducing duplicative or conflicting efforts. All parties will develop plans informed by data and performance trends, identify practices to realize the articulated vision, and establish milestones for gauging progress. The leadership team will use the continuous improvement process to develop and pursue its operational plan while monitoring and addressing the results to ensure full implementation of the Strategic Direction.
As part of the continuous improvement process, the team will revisit the Bureau’s Strategic Direction, examine the results, data, and student outcomes to determine progress, and make revisions as necessary. Establishing timelines, assigning roles and responsibilities, monitoring routines, and tracking evidence of success are all integral to the improvement process and will be the ongoing work of the BIE. Timelines and tasks will be updated to maintain the pace needed to accomplish the strategies.
Progress Monitoring
Progress reviews will be conducted at all levels to assess our organizational advances in implementing the Strategic Direction. These meetings are to be positive, student-centered, data-informed, and focused on continuous improvement. Discussions will identify areas of success, challenges, and support needs. The operational plan will be monitored at regular intervals to ensure fidelity as the team verifies progress in completing specific milestones and actions.
Tracking evidence of success is integral to the improvement process. The BIE will establish key metrics around items such as native language accessibility, graduation, and attendance to track progress on the overarching priorities. The success of each strategy will be regularly monitored through key performance indicators. These metrics will be collaboratively developed to ensure alignment with each overarching priority and strategy and will measure what is most important to stakeholders. For transparency, these metrics and our progress toward achieving them will be published in a publicly available annual report. Internally, the BIE will also track progress metrics for each milestone within the operational plan. These progress metrics will be formative lead measures to track the critical activities driving the KPIs and key metrics.
The immediate next steps to standardize progress monitoring within the BIE include selecting a platform to enter plans and progress data, developing common metrics to gauge organizational performance, and conducting training at all levels for developing and entering operational plans and progress aligned with the Strategic Direction.
Additionally, the BIE will publish individual school report cards and a BIE Consolidated Report Card. These reports will provide stakeholders with data on enrollment, attendance, graduation rates, and test performance in reading, mathematics, and science. They will also include information on language proficiency, educator qualifications, and per pupil expenditure.
Assessment Integration
To better serve our students, educators, and families, the BIE provides a balanced assessment system that offers interim assessments that are connected to academic content standards and the summative assessment. Additionally, the BIE is working to include culturally-relevant items in the balanced assessment system. The balanced assessment system supports educators in strengthening their understanding of the role assessments play in informing instruction throughout the school year and ultimately improving student outcomes.
