Word Document: Strengths and Issues
Standard I: Institutional Mission, Purpose, and Objectives
Strengths
- Mission statement gives a clear direction to SMAS efforts and is able to be assessed.
Issues
- Mission may change with developments at the District or State level.
Standard II: Organizational Structure
Strengths
- Good connection with the High School District
- Development of Professional Learning Communities gives more teacher direction to programs.
Issues
- Off site campuses do not always have same access to resources.
Standard III: Evaluation and Planning
Strengths
- Leadership team meets weekly and provides consistent and timely planning.
- Strong connection to community through Advisory Board, District wide and state wide committees.
Issues
- Performance and outcome data is not always available for all programs for evaluation and planning purposes.
- It is difficult to plan with ongoing budget uncertainty.
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Standard IV: Educational Programs
Strengths
- Programs reach a broad population by having flexible hours and locations.
- Passionate instructors who are trained to work with specific populations.
Issues
- Better assessment tools need to be developed to provide more accurate individual data in some programs.
- Gathering and analysis of data needs to be more systematic and applied system wide.
Standard V: Program, Student, and Institutional Outcomes
Strengths
- The Adult School has embraced the notion of ongoing planning by setting up and paying ESL instructors to participate in PLCs. The teachers meet regularly to address the issues of planning, evaluation and implementation.
Issues
- Data collection, analysis and planning on data is not system wide or consistent.
- The School does not currently have a system to track what happens to students who leave the institution for other educational or training situations.
Standard VI - Student Support Services
Strengths
- Ability to adapt all programs to provide a conducive learning environment for all skill levels.
- Ability to develop an understanding of the students needs and provide guidance and the best possible solution to any situation.
- Preparation to accomplish long term goals beyond the Adult School, through inspiration, belief, knowledge and information.
Issues
- Making sure all students are fully aware of all the programs and classes available, especially within the Older Adult and ESL population.
- To emphasize to ESL instructors the importance of the CASAS test scores which will generate money to fund services for the support of student learning.
- Make all students aware of extra-curriculum activities within the Adult School.
Standard VII: Human Resources
Strengths
- A diverse staff in terms of life and work experience, that works well with the diverse student population.
Issues
- Because budgets are often not finalized in a timely manner, planning is especially difficult. Resources can’t be allocated until the budget is firm; instructional activities can’t be planned; student outcomes can’t be identified and an appropriate level of staffing can’t be determined.
- An inconsistent ability by all staff to access professional development.
- No formal agreement has been reached on teacher evaluation
Standard VIII: Learning Resources
Strengths
- SMARTboard Technology in the ESL wing and new computers in the Modern Office Technologies class have been kept current until the recent downturn.
Issues
- Budget constraints make it difficult to maintain current technology for job market classes.
- Development of non face-to-face courses would aid in reaching students who are unable to currently access services.
- Both ESL computer labs are aging and have significant down time for some computers.
- Increasing use by on campus teachers causes internet connections to be often unuseable.
Standard IX: Financial Resources
Strengths
- There has been good communication on budget issues.
- Support from District Office has been consistent through the budget crisis .
- The implementation of fees has raised a significant amount of money to keep programs going.
Issue
- Lack of a stable budget process at the state level.
Standard X: Physical Resources
Strengths
- All the buildings and infrastructure were built using Adult School funds generated from student attendance.
- All planning and execution of building was done in a fiscally responsible manner.
- Student input into the school via the Student Council benefits the school.
- The good relationship between the Adult School and parent District means the Adult School receives district assistance on infrastructure projects.
Issues
- Uncertain state budget amounts make it difficult to schedule upkeep and upgrades.
- Network bandwidth is too narrow to handle peak teaching time demands.
