Once you know what constitutes success for your parochial school, it is easy to determine what more there is to do. If you do more, more success will follow. The key is carefully defining success.
Success is measured in many different ways at different times. As compared with last year:
What tools, attributes, attitudes, or skills do the students need to be successful?
Has the parents’ expectations changed?
Has the donors’ expectations changed?
Is it necessary to change the way you measure success in the 2012 – 2013 school year?
The preceding questions identify four different ways to measure success. Which measure is the most relevant to your mission and the needs of your students?
Let us assume you decided on high school graduation rate as the way to measure the first question (student needs). You might decide that a student has a high potential of graduating from high school if he or she is a passionate learner. The next step would be to determine the attributes of a passionate learner (thirst for knowledge, curiosity, love of learning, effective and efficient study skills, reason/motivation for learning, etc.). The final step is to create a scale and a minimum acceptable success level on the scale.
The strength of the attributes of each student will position them on the scale. Knowing what the minimum level each student must achieve tells you what constitutes success. You now know the one number that defines success.
It becomes easy to report to the parents, donors, and others the meaningful, measurable, and durable success of your program. The process can be applied to every student regardless of the grade level. Then the success of your school can be reported at each grade level.
Of course, the success measure must align with the mission statement.
Next Step:
Determine the one success measure you are going to use for your school for the next year
Determine the attributes that define the success measure and how you will measure the strength of each attribute as well as setting a minimum acceptable value for the success measure
Talk with your staff, parents, donors, and others about why the success measure is important (assures high school graduation for instance)
Report periodically to stakeholders your school’s progress toward achieving the goal
Determine what the stakeholders can do to assist with success
Repeat the process next summer. You may decide to keep the same success measure next year. However, if you decide another success measure is more important, be sure to continue the pursuit of the current success measure as well.
If every few years you add a new success measure while retaining past measures, you will develop a very robust program. Over time, in addition to your strong academic performance, you will have a program that is unique and significantly more valuable than other Christian schools in your area. In short, the sustainability of your school will be significantly higher than other schools. In addition, enrollment and retention will increase.
