Frequently Asked Questions

Please suggest additional questions by submitting a comment at the bottom of this page.

School Planning and Scorecard

Yes, there will be a new school site plan development process that aligns with the development of your BSC. The scorecard includes the goals and measures of success while the plan will articulate the strategies, timeline, and owners to achieve those goals.

There will be some standardization across schools and departments but the scorecards will be individualized to reflect individual school needs. The department scorecards will be driven by school needs.

We need to ensure all our students achieve results, so we must be results focused. We need to keep score so we know where we're not performing. We need to be able to track a number of measures that are balanced and reflect the whole picture of our district performance.

Surveys of parents, teachers, and students will be conducted this fall and the resulting data will be available to incorporate into school site scorecards as well as into the district scorecard. The Research, Planning and Accountability office can also work with sites to develop each school’s desired qualitative measures.

We wanted to build in time for feedback and support from central office as well as sharing between sites. This process will enable schools to learn from each other, schools to teach the district, and the district to offer support to schools.

We are phasing in these tools to support equity and access at every level. The leadership plan and BSC are intended to complement each other and help you in driving student success at your school. This year, we will continue to have a leadership plan for principals that includes an emphasis on equity. A school leader will need those competencies to be successful in their role. We eventually want all employees to have a personal leadership plan that informs their professional development plans and a system of supports and ongoing professional development. This revised plan ensures alignment of your leadership plan with school and department plans and scorecards.

Yes. You will not be asked to submit a new site plan this year in addition to your BSC. However, as our BSC implementation is not yet complete, you should retain aspects of the site plan that contribute to a comprehensive school plan.

Beyond the Talk

This plan is different for a number of reasons:

• It is shaped by many more voices including parents, staff, and students; it involves the community in a meaningful way.
• It takes a long term view by creating sustainable structures.
• It has an evaluation process built in to continually update the plan and ensure it is a living document.
• It assumes flexibility and responsibility at the site level and in turn expects the district central to support the sites in direct ways for shared goals revolving around social justice.
  

This is the priority; this is the work. The purpose of the strategic planning process is to unite all schools and departments under a common vision of access and equity, student achievement, and accountability. The work that we're doing that does not yet fit in with these goals should become connected. Because the plan focuses on alignment, we will work together to ensure we are focused on the items that we've put into the scorecard.  As this happens, some other work items may no longer be needed.

Yes. This plan is about all students having 21st century skills and meeting the needs of every individual child. We're no longer comparing student achievement in the same limited ways. By using the School Access and Equity Quality Matrix, we are better able to measure the impact that a school has on its students. Schools with high API/AYP measures will be supported in interpreting data to evaluate what impact the school had on its high achieving students. 

The SFUSD board, our Superintendent, and all central office leaders are committed to systemic change and the time it will take. Just like school reform, it will begin slowly then progress as everyone comes to recognize how to serve the main objectives in the Strategic Plan. To ensure that the central office is configured to serve schools, we need the school plans to drive the central office requirements. We are just beginning to see the shift, as evidenced by an increased focus in professional development. We need to give people the proper tools and training to do their jobs. The scorecards will also start to increase the level of accountability and visibility into performance.

What kind of changes should I expect to see I the central office undertake once our plans are reviewed and digested?
Expect to see changes in the way staff are deployed, measures of central office teams, departments and divisions that improve their level of service to schools, reconsideration of funding priorities, and a greater amount of communication with schools.

What do social justice, equity and access mean? Whom are we serving?
The Board Scorecard includes many measures for defining social justice. For example, social justice means that all students achieving academic proficiency, motivated to learn, ready for university and employment, graduating, etc. However, SFUSD is very interested in learning what schools believe social justice, equity, and access mean for their communities. The measures developed by schools in their scorecard will inform the work of SFUSD as a whole.