Official Site of The State of New Jersey
Annual School Planning
The New Jersey Annual School Planning Process serves as a framework for long-term, sustained improvement that is considered best practice, and, therefore, is available for all New Jersey schools. Included as support to the planning process are training modules and templates to guide schools through this work. Schools identified as Comprehensive or Targeted, as well as any school applying for Title I Schoolwide status, will be required to adhere to the Annual School Planning Process. While not required for all other schools, the Annual School Planning Process, the Annual School Planning System (the electronic version of the Annual School Planning Process) and accompanying resources are available to all schools.
The Comprehensive Needs Assessment allows school-level teams to reflect deeply on practices of the previous year and identify areas of strength, as well as areas needing focus. There are two components to a comprehensive needs assessment. The first is data analysis, including both qualitative and quantitative data, and examining trend data to determine progress over multiple years. The second component of a comprehensive needs assessment, which may be done in tandem with data analysis, is to complete a needs assessment rubric. A document of guiding questions, to support completion of the Needs Assessment, can be found in the Resources tab.
As annual school planning teams work through this process, areas of strength, as well as areas requiring focus, will begin to emerge. The team should identify areas needing focus that could be contributing to negative data trends in preparation for the next step of the process, the Root Cause Analysis.
Teams must create the Annual School Plan that includes three or four SMART goals that will be the focus for the entire school year. A SMART goal must be specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented, and timely. Setting goals is the most intensive part of this step in the process, and it is also the most important. An achievable goal must be realistic, while remaining rigorous enough to move student achievement forward.
Once goals have been established, teams must determine the action steps necessary to achieve the goals. This includes assigning responsibilities, identifying sources of evidence, determining funding, establishing a timeline for implementation and planning professional development. There is no set number of action steps required, but teams should think about the span of the school year and the stages of development.
When goals, action steps and funding have been determined, annual school planning teams must share this information with all stakeholders. This plan belongs to the entire school community and is the main driver in student achievement. Once a plan is in place, annual school planning teams will begin the process of implementing the plan and monitoring progress toward the goals.
When the improvement plan with SMART goals is completed, it will become the school's blueprint for implementation throughout the year. Annual school planning teams must set checkpoints along the way to monitor progress toward goals. This provides an opportunity to reflect on the implementation of the Annual School Plan as it relates to the school's progress toward academic success for all students.
Once the plan is implemented, annual school planning teams should review the interim goal section of the Annual School Plan regularly to reflect on the school's progress. Annual school planning teams also must make decisions about sharing this information in a timely manner with all stakeholders and continually use these data to drive all instructional decisions.
Throughout the school year, the annual school planning team reviews both summative and formative data to determine whether action steps have been implemented and whether goals have been achieved. As annual school planning teams move from year to year, decisions will be made about continuing with established goals or moving in a different direction. As always, data should drive decision-making with the goal of increased student achievement.