Overview of the School Comprehensive Improvement Plan (SCIP)

The School Comprehensive Improvement Plan (SCIP) is a strategic web-based document that Saint Paul Public Schools' staff and site councils utilize to identify their improvement priorities for the school year.

The three key components of the SCIP are:

• Conclusions drawn from Data
• Outcomes
• Improvement Initiatives

A school improvement plan is necessarily based on the actual assessed strengths and needs of students at the school.  School staff and other persons involved in creating the SCIP utilize the District's electronic Data Center, as well as school-based assessments to review students' status and progress on all of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal law indicators, as well as other key state and district indicators, such as the Basic Skills Test (BST) at the high school level. In addition, schools analyze student demographic data and other performance indicators such as attendance rates, discipline, graduation rates and enrollment in higher education institutions in determining the areas which the school must emphasize in the coming year in order to bring about higher levels of student proficiency and success.  SCIP Outcomes and Improvement Initiatives are determined at the school level based on conclusions drawn following careful analysis of this data.

SCIP Outcomes are the desired ends of the school improvement process, while SCIP Improvement Initiatives are the means of achieving them. In other words, SCIP Outomces are "what the students will achieve" and SCIP Improvement Initiatives are "what the staff will do to help the students achieve the desired result." For example,if a school's SCIP Outcome is to raise reading performance on the MCA II, its Improvement Initiatives might include further implementing Writer's Workshop and Reader's Workshop strategies, expanding after school programming or emphasizing literacy within small learning communities.

One other component of the SCIP is:

• The Assurances Worksheet:  This document is an on-line response form on which schools can confirm they are implementing mandatory federal, state and district policies and procedures.  The Assurances are accessed via the web-based SCIP.