Department of Defense Education Activity

Brussels ES/HS: School Improvement

School Improvement

Continuous school improvement is an embedded behavior rooted in the school's culture that constantly focuses on the conditions, processes, and practices that improve teaching and learning. Schools use student performance results and analyze data from various interwoven components to develop plans and implement improvement actions to drive education quality and improved student outcomes.

Brussels American School Mission

Educate, Engage, and Empower each student to succeed in a dynamic world.

Brussels American School Vision

The Vision of Brussels American School is to provide each student a diverse education in a safe, supportive environment that promotes academic excellence, life-long learning, self-discipline, global citizenship and tolerance.

DoDEA Accreditation

Accreditation is the act of granting credit or recognition (especially with respect to an educational institution that maintains suitable standards). Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which services and operations of educational institutions or programs are evaluated by an external agency to determine if applicable standards are met. If standards are met, accredited status is granted by the agency.

Cognia is the accreditation agency for all DoDEA schools and the world's largest education community. As the global leader in advancing education excellence through accreditation and school improvement, Cognia brings together more than 100 years of experience and the expertise of three United States-based accreditation agencies - the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA/CASI), Northwest Accreditation Commission (NWAC), and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS/CASI). Accreditation is pivotal to leveraging education quality and continuous improvement.

Detailed accreditation information is provided on the DoDEA HQ Accreditation Webpage.

EU West Continuous Improvement

Findings: Caring, responsive, and committed leadership propels the organization to greater likelihood of achieving its mission...

A clearly articulated continuous improvement process and quality assurance practices ensure accountability and ultimately move the system to higher levels of student success. 

Demonstrated:

  • Challenge, Content, Action & Results (CCAR)
  • Plan of Action & Milestones (POAM)
  • Complex COVID Assessment Teams
  • Validation Visits
  • ISS Buddy System
  • Learning Site Guidance, Digital Learning Support Plan, Digital Support Team
  • Big Four
  • Theory of Action 
  • SAP/DAP
  • ORID protocol

Demonstrated:

  • Learning Walkthrough Cycles
  • Ladder of Feedback
  • Focused Collaboration Implementation
  • Calibration & Validation Visits
  • Data Protocols (ORID)

Findings:

The DoDEA Europe West District has developed and maintains a solid and targeted focus on student learning.

Demonstrated:

  • Focus on differentiation
  • Providing equitable learning opportunities
  • Supports for effective instructional practice:
    • AVID
    • AAP
    • AAPS
    • RTI
    • PBIS
  • Initial Implementation of REDI program
  • Multiple feedback loops to gather implementation and student outcome data

Demonstrated:

  • Professional Learning opportunities
  • Feedback cycles for improvement
  • ISS development
  • ISS support 
  • Leadership Development (ILT)
  • Student Support Teams
  • "Whole Child"
  • Digital Learning Plan

Demonstrated:

  • Ability to pivot
  • Digital Learning Support Plan
  • Tech Bytes
  • Parent University
  • Complex COVID Assurance Teams

Growth Opportunities - ContInuous Improvement Journey

Findings: The district has instituted rich and sophisticated applied data analysis and systemic evaluation to inform instruction, individualize support, plan interventions and institute curricular reform across core academic areas, however some identified processes, procedures and programs unique to some schools included in Europe Est demonstrated less consistent systematic formal evaluation. 

Areas for Further Study & Review

A couple of areas that you may wish to examine include a more systemic, programmatic process:

  • School Initiatives (PBIS, Discipline approaches) - How do we evaluate programs that are not system wide? (PBIS, discipline approaches, for example)
  • Stakeholder Engagement - how can we evaluate to make sure we are getting those voices from across our schools?
  • Mentoring & Coaching - How are we inducting people into Europe West [in a systematic way]? Are we evaluating how effective that is?

Challenges

The Cognia Team acknowledged challenges that may be beyond our control, and encouraged our continued improvement efforts to mitigate student transience, consistency and change in leadership, time zones & country specific requirements, travel COVID 19 and staffing.