Before principals can effectively lead he school improvement process, they must understand the key processes and strategies for hitting an instructional target. The "How to Hit a Target" questions below identify these key instructional processes.

How to Hit a Target

1. Understanding the Target
   • Do all staff understand what students are asked to know and do on the state assessments?
     
   • Do all staff understand how student performance is scored on the state assessments and what a satisfactory and excellent student response looks like?
      
2. Teaching the Indicators
   • Do all staff know the goals, expectations, and indicators they are responsible for teaching?
   • Do all staff teach them?
   • Do all staff review them?
      
3. Assessing the Indicators
   • Do all staff know how to assess the content standards and performance outcomes?
   • How are they being assessed in your program?
   • What do the results indicate?
      
4. Monitoring Individual Student Progress
   • Are all staff monitoring progress of individual students on these performance outcomes?
   • How do they use the data to inform instruction?
   • How do they share the results?
      
5. Intervening with students not succeeding
   • Do all staff provide interventions for students not demonstrating attainment of an outcome?
   • What are your most common interventions for students not achieving?
   • How successful are the interventions?
   • What percentage of your students need interventions?