Brandon

Academy

Needs Assessment
Plan

Christine Whitt
EME5601

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Table of Contents

Overview and Rational................................................................................................3

Feseability .................................................................................................................4-5
2.1 Resources ............................................................................................................5
2.2 Budget .................................................................................................................5
2.3 Benefit .................................................................................................................5

Plan..........................................................................................................................6-10
3.1 Objectives................................................................................................................6
3.2 Target Audience...6
3.3 Sampling Procedure 7
3.4 Data Collection Strategy and Tactics ... 8
3.5 Instruments and Protocols ...9
3.6 Procedure Implementation ....10

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1. Overview and Rational

Brandon Academy is a private school in Brandon, Florida, just outside of Tampa. The school is part of the Florida
Council for Independent Schools, which falls under the umbrella of The National Council for Independent Schools.
Brandon Academy services students from age three through eighth grade and operates all classes at one academic grade
level above.
As a private school the organizational system is small. The chart below shows the heiretical relationships within the
instructional and administrative staff members.

Head of School

Principal of Lower
School

PreK Lead

3 PreK teachers
PreK 3, JK4, VPK

K-2 Lead

Principal of Middle
School

3-5 lead

5 grade level
teachers:
K, 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B

3 grade level
teachers:
3, 4, 5

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Special Area
Teachers:
Art, Music,
Computers, Spanish

4 Subject Area
Teachers: Math,
Science, LA, SS

Student Services
Director

Each year students at Brandon Academy participate in multiple assesments that involve writing- with the BA Writes
being the writing capstone. For these assesments students are given classtime to write and plan an assigned essay to
demonstrate their writing ability. Grade level and subject teachers are then asked to acess the writing based on a staderdized
rubric for each grade level. Each essay is looked at by two teachers and assigned a holistic score for each area of wiriting:
focus, organization, details, grammar, spelling, language, and creativity. It has been noted that scores on this assesment have
not been as high as the school would like. This is coupled with the feedback from parents (the customer) that they do not feel
as if they are receiving proper communication regarding their childrens writing progress. With writing being a large part of the
educational system, the school sees a void between where they want to be with writing instruction and assesment and where
they feel they should be with writing instruction and assesment. After an initial review of the current writing program at
Brandon Academy, the following areas of concern were noted:
1. Student scores in writing from the beginning to the end of the year yeilded little to no change
2. There is no standard in grading from grade level to grade level. Although each grade level has a standard of its
own, these are separate from the other grades.
3. Parents are notified only twice a year regarding student writing and are given little feedback as to what the
parent can do to help.
4. Jargon used on feedback to the parents is often times not clear.
2. Fesability
It is my opinion that this needs assesment is managable and feasable by the budget and recourses avalible to me. There are
also several benefits for conducting this needs assesment.

2.1 Resourses
Brandon Academy is a small school, but there are many resourses avalible to the school from teachers, current and past
students, and administrators to gather information from.
2.2 Budget

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The cost of the needs assesment should be minimum. Because we are looking at one school in one location, there will
be no need for travel. All data can be collected on site, which also means there is little use for technology use. Employees and
students can be interviewed and surveyed during normal school and work hours. The largest cost will be to pay for the time of
ISD professional who will be conducting the needs assesment.
2.3 Benefit
By conducting the needs assesment, Brandon Academy will be able to see the weeknesses of their current writing program
and use this to create a new writing program that will benefit the students. The result of this will be that students will become
stronger writers and parents will be given the reassurance that their money is being well spent on a private education for their
children, thus ensuring continuing growing enrollment for future school years.

3. Plan
4.1 Objectives
In order to succesfully improve the student writing score among Brandon Academy Students, this needs assesment
needs to:
Determine classroom activities that are working within the school and student population
Determine what classroom activities are not working
Identify gaps in learning from year to year
Set up goals for measuring student writing achievement
Set up a standard for measuring student writing across grade levels
Determine a solution that will work for the school, students, and parents.
4.2 Target Audience
The target population falls into three groups: practitioners, learners, and decision makers. Each of these groups is vital
in the assesment process and each groups opinions are important to determining need.

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Practitioners: This group includes those who are doing any of the teaching and grading within the school. The
practioners will include teachers, tutors, and select administrators.
Learners: The learners group includes those who receive the writing instruction. In this case the students at the
school fall into the learners catergory.
Decision Makers: The decision makers include those who decide whether or not the needs assesment has been
sucessfully completed. The decision makers include the head of school and principals.
4.3 Sampling Procedure
Because the samples that will need to be collected vary across grade levels and divisions of the school, this needs
assesment will be using a stratified sampling. Each level of the school (lower and middle) and each grade level within each
with be broken down into the target population and then selected at random to accuratly represent their place within the school.
Lower School: Lower school consists of 70% of the school. For this reason the needs assesment will pull approxmitly
70% of its sample from the lower school population. This will include people from the practioners and learners.
Middle School: Middle school consists of the other 30% of the school, so this needs assesment will pull approxmitly
30% of its sample from the middle school. Like the middle school, this will include practioners and learners.
Decision Makers: The decision makers at the school make up a very small amount of the population, but hold the most
resposnibilty. For this reason both heads of schools and the principal.

4.4 Data Collection and Survey Tactics

Below are the data collection methods that will be used. Once all data is collected, data will be analysed and presented
using descriptive design so that all information is represented qualitivly as a narrative.
Interviews- All interviews will be face to face since all participants are in one location. A list of interview questions will
be constructed prior to the interview and questions will be based on objectives. Follow up questions will be asked based
on responses.

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Direct Observations- Teacher and students will be obeserved in class during writing instruction time. With each teacher
completing a planned and unplanned observation.
Indirect Observations- Student writing will be evaluated with evidence from before instruction began for the year and
ending instruction. Teacher lesson plans will also be evaluated for teaching strategies and procedures.
Compentency Assessment- Teachers whose students have shown growth in writing will be examined an interviewed to
come up with a list of characteristics for writing instruction that works. A list is then created of the characteristics that
the interview revealed as exemplary. From this list a way to identify and measure these characteristics will be
determined. This list will then be crossed checked with actual practice within the classroom for validation.

4.5 Instruments and Protocols

Intruments

A calendar for when each part of the needs assesment should be complete
A check list for each area of the needs assesment
Interview questions for face to face interviews
Checklist for observed skills during direct and indirect observations
A list of all staff who will be participating in the data collection with contact information

Protocols

All reports will be made to the head of school who will then communicate with the principals and other staff.
Teachers within the school will be notified from the prinicpal or head of school of their participation.
Once notified of participation, ID will contact participants personally to arrange for time of contact.
Progress reports will be made weekly to the head of school
Final findings will be presented to the head of school and prinicpals through a formal presntation during a faceto-face meeting.

4.6 Procedure and Implemintation

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The administration at Brandon Academy will implemint the needs assesment along with the help from the faculty. The
will follow the steps below:
1. Request approval for conducting the needs assesment for the writing program from the head of school.
2. A checklist will be prepared to keep track of the steps involved in the needs assesment. As steps are complete, the
checklist will be initaled and dated to varify completion. Included in this checklist will be a sample timeline to
show approxmite dates of completion in order to keep the project on time.
3. Questions for data collection will be created with the purpose of obtaining starderized information from each area
4.
5.
6.
7.

of interest: teachers, student, administrators, and parents.

Time to collect data will be schedualed with individuals involved.
Analyze data to arrive at conclusions and identify gaps in writing achievement and insturction.
Determine solutions to the problem.
Present information from the needs assesment to the head of school.

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