These are some of the tips we shared with the San Joaquin County Office of Education … while updating protocols and training their staff members, and during our presentation at the 2024 CCAP (California Charter Authorizing Professionals) conference … on conducting annual charter school site visits:
- Focus: Target a particular improvement focus area, such as school culture and climate
- Train: Conduct a training before site visits, including video-based lesson observation norming sessions
- Disseminate: Share a site visit protocol document with schools to promote consistency, clarity and transparency
- Answer: Develop a procedures document that answers all site visit team members’ questions
- Style: Complete a style guide that informs report writing
- Standardize: Create interview templates that include questions aligned with the site visit rubric
- Diversify: Schedule an array of school stakeholder focus groups (board, leaders, staff, parents, students) to paints a more robust picture on academic and fiscal performance as well as operational inputs
- Randomize: Identify a random selection of student (from each grade level) and parent focus group participants
- Discuss: Ensure enough time at end of the day for an internal consensus meeting
- Clarify: Make it clear that the team is not evaluating individual teachers but is examining trends across classrooms
- Publicize: Put the site visit rubric on authorizer website
- Bolster: Consider utilizing a consultant as participant to promote objectivity, expertise and add capacity