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David J. Erickson

College Name, Grand Canyon University

EAD-519: Clinical Internship I: Learner-Centered Leadership

Dr. Gina Coffaro

September 28, 2022

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The mission and vision statement of Marysville Getchell High School is that all educators

will “strive to empower all students to discover and develop their unique gifts…[by] provid[ing]

an engaging, rigorous education in a safe and supportive environment” (Marysville Getchell

High School [MGHS], Student Handbook, 2022). However, in regard to our CIP (which we refer

to it as our School Improvement Plan, or SIP), it has become something that is seen more as a

hoop to jump through rather than a working document that administration and staff will refer to

for improvement.

While meeting with my principal mentor, he stated that our SIP has become a document

that had only been “updated with numbers, but not in practice” (R. Zimmerman, personal

communication, September 23, 2022). As such, it is a document that began prior to COVID, but

no collaboration has been done since. Therefore, our stakeholders are missing out not only on

opportunities to see the overall growth of students meeting standards, but they are missing out on

the creation of the goals for which we are aiming.

In EAD-510: Educational Finance, I was tasked to create surveys for staff members to fill

out. Part of my surveys included questions pertaining to my building SIP and if anyone knew

what the SIP was or if they had even heard of it. Based on results, less than half knew what our

school’s SIP was and none of them took place in the creation. Prior to the summer of 2022 and

the 2022–2023 school year, the SIP for MGHS wasn’t applicable to what was taking place in the

classroom, nor was it successful, for the goals were only quantitatively adjusted rather than the

goals themselves be qualitatively changed.

However, though my building SIP hadn’t been beneficial prior this school year, my

principal had made a point of addressing it multiple times since our initial training days.

According to my principal mentor, everyone at the school has to buy in and want to provide
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insight to create accurate SIP goals. For example, as previously stated, the mission and vision of

MGHS is to have an engaging and rigorous education. My principal mentor—prior to the school

year starting—tasked each department to create engaging learning targets with appropriate

success criteria in order to ensure students are able to be constantly engaged within the

curriculum. Moreover, there has been an emphasis placed on departments collaborating more to

increase rigor, align topics (for example English to history), and eliminate potentially repeated

lessons.

Overall, at MGHS, our goal is to ensure students have continued growth throughout their

educational career. Since our first training, our school has created a new SIP, which includes a

goal of “increase[d] family and community engagement…[and provides] opportunities for

families to support student learning” (Marysville Getchell High School [MGHS], SIP, 2022). My

principal emphasized the need for all stakeholders to be involved in student success because

without the buy-in from all affected and involved, students won’t buy into our goals.
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References

Marysville Getchell High School. (2022). Student Handbook.

Marysville Getchell High School. (2022). School Improvement Plan.

Zimmerman, R. (2022, September 23). Personal Communication.