The Design and Characteristics of School Improvement Plan Templates

Resources for school improvement efforts, such as school improvement plan (SIP) templates, can espouse governmental entities’ perspectives, requirements, and recommendations of the school improvement planning process. These resources, in turn, can influence how educators enact school improvement efforts generally and the school improvement planning process specifically. In this exploratory qualitative study, we leveraged a conventional content analysis to rigorously examine SIP templates used by schools in the United States before and after the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. We were particularly interested in learning how SIP templates espoused the school improvement planning process. Findings suggest that SIP templates focused more on developing SIPs than implementing SIPs, raising concerns about SIPs continuing to be enacted out of compliance rather than as a mechanism for spurring and sustaining improvement efforts in schools.