“Monitoring progress is critical in the continuous improvement process.”– Lesli Laughter, Continuous Improvement Without Continuous Stress
Monitoring the progress of the actions and goals in your district or school improvement plan isn’t just a checklist item or an administrative task—it’s a powerful tool for reflection, action, and growth. Progress monitoring is a systematic and ongoing process of assessing performance and growth over time. When implemented with purpose, it drives continuous improvement across schools and districts.
WHY SHOULD WE MONITOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PLANS?
Progress monitoring, sometimes called formative review, isn’t just about checking boxes. It’s about creating clarity, encouraging reflection, and driving purposeful action. Here’s how it will strengthen your district:
1. Keep Goals in Sight
Regularly tracking progress keeps your improvement plan goals front and center. It encourages schools and districts to ask: What’s working? What’s not? Where are we off track? What are we doing well? This ongoing reflection ensures your teams remain aligned and focused on growth.
2. Make Informed Decisions
Effective decisions require evidence. Progress monitoring provides the evidence needed to make informed choices around where you spend your money, your time, and your personnel. Informed decisions about instruction, curriculum, interventions, and resources ensure that every move is rooted in student need.
3. Strengthen Instruction
By identifying strategies that worked (and those that have not), educators can refine their teaching practices, leading to stronger outcomes and a more responsive learning environment. It’s not about doing MORE, it’s about doing what’s effective.
4. Provide Accountability for Growth
Ongoing monitoring ensures that everyone, from the classroom to the district office, is accountable for student outcomes. It shifts the focus from one-time results to sustained, measurable growth.
5. Adapt in Real Time
No need to wait for end-of-year data to find out something didn’t work! Kids can’t afford for us to waste time on ineffective strategies. With consistent progress checks, schools can make adjustments quickly, rather than delaying helpful changes.
6. Foster a Growth Mindset
Feedback and reflection create space for learning. When growth is seen as a continuous process and feedback is used constructively, a culture of learning and improvement flourishes. Everyone—students, teachers, and leaders—begins to see challenges as opportunities.
7. Support Broader Goals
Tracking progress is about improving student outcomes, AND about connecting to the bigger picture. It helps connect student growth with district and school improvement plans, ensuring all efforts are aligned.
SO HOW DO WE MONITOR PLANS?
Good progress monitoring doesn’t have to be complex, but it does need to be intentional. Here are some best practices to make it work for your teams:
Schedule it (or It May Not Happen): Like anything else that matters, you have to make time for it. Set regular intervals for progress monitoring. If it’s only done sporadically or as an afterthought, it loses its power, becoming reactive instead of reflective.
Include the Right People: This work isn’t just for one role or team. Bring in others, especially key stakeholders, to those regular discussions. Reviewing your effectiveness is a collaborative effort and collective responsibility.
Keep Revising Goals and Strategies: Don’t just track numbers. Check that the strategies behind the numbers still make sense. Consider the why behind the data. Revisit strategies often to ensure alignment and relevance.
In her book, Continuous Improvement Without Continuous Stress, Lesli Laughter shares the following questions to support the reviewing of goals and strategies:
- What? (What does the data tell us?)
- So what? (Why does it matter?)
- Now what? (What actions will we take?)
Document Clearly: Keep records of what’s being tracked, how it’s being measured, and what insights are emerging. This helps prevent confusion and supports future planning. Anyone heard the quote “If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen?”
IN SUMMARY…
There’s a saying, “You cannot expect what you do not inspect.” In schools, this means that progress needs attention, not just at the finish line, but along the way. With a consistent, thoughtful approach, progress monitoring your plans helps your teams stay connected to goals, adjust strategies, and keep moving forward to move the needle toward student success!
Tips:
Plan4Learning is the only school planning software that incorporates regular formative reviews, with dates set by the district, for progress monitoring with fidelity.
For additional insights about progress monitoring continuous improvement plans:
Laughter, Lesli. (2024) Continuous Improvement Without Continuous Stress. hope*books / hope*media Network
Check out our blog on How to Conduct an Effective Formative Review
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