If you are interested in any of the following audits or assessments, please reach out. We’re always happy to answer questions and discuss your organization’s specific areas of need. Consultations are always offered at no charge and with no obligation.
Contact UsResource Associates’ Staff Development Audit service is one that will help you identify and address your educators’ professional development needs. The audit is guided by scientifically-based research on effective staff development programs and is extremely effective at streamlining and maximizing our clients’ professional development outcomes. Our expert trainer will work closely with your staff to identify the areas of staff development most needed in context to student achievement levels and instructional practices. The trainer will also analyze how your agency has provided training and assistance in the past as well as the strengths and weaknesses of such training. A plan for improvement and success will then be developed by the trainer in conjunction with the administrative and/or teaching staff of your education agency.
Resource Associates’ Curriculum Audit service is completely customized for each and every school and education agency that it has the opportunity to support. The service is designed to help K-12 education agencies identify areas where their curriculum might not be aligned to state standards as well as areas where teaching staff might not be using the most appropriate instructional strategies and approaches to helping students achieve high levels of academic success. The audit, which includes a thorough assessment of the curricular scope and sequences adopted by the organization, is performed using Resource Associates’ pacing charts and content standards alignment matrices. The audit further concentrates on all four core curriculum areas. As a final part of the audit process, your trainer will compile the information gathered and use it to develop a strategic plan of needed improvements. This plan of strategies and timelines then acts as an implementation roadmap to push a school, its students, and its staff towards academic and performance excellence.
School safety is the responsibility of everyone – staff, students, parents, and the community. An audit is one tool that, if used effectively, can provide a snapshot of the school’s level of safety and uncover those areas that need improvement. This proactive process will help ensure that students can maximize their learning potential within a safe and secure environment.
The School Safety Audit allows for a school-formed team of stakeholders and staff to come together to analyze safety among a number of pre-defined domains which are known to impact child and staff safety. These include, but are not limited to:
It is recommended that a complete safety audit be conducted every three years and a review of the identified implementation and improvements noted in the complete audit be conducted on an annual basis.
A School Safety Audit is one of the most effective ways to prevent safety hazards and to keep your children and staff protected. But what happens when a School Safety Audit uncovers deficiencies? The “What Now” training is uniquely customized to address the specific deficiencies that have been identified by a completed School Safety Audit. The training encourages school personnel (and safety stakeholders) to get involved in the problem solving process as they collaboratively study deficient areas – all while receiving the skills and knowledge needed to fix the deficiencies. This proactive approach serves to ensure that students can maximize their learning potential within a safe and secure environment. It also removes safety concerns and fear from your staff members’ shoulders so they can focus on doing their incredibly important jobs. The “What Now” training is specifically tailored to each school’s Safety Audit report and can run from 1-5 days in length.
Resource Associates has designed a two-day training course for district safety team members that will help them develop the knowledge and skills needed to conduct comprehensive and high quality safety audits on different types of school sites. The training will build the safety team’s understanding of the ten domains of school safety (listed above) by offering examples of both poor and exceptional school safety policies and protocols. This includes a study of best practices related to emergency management procedures and recommended professional development schedules for various types of school personnel. The training additionally includes a walk-through exercise which will take place at two different types of facilities in your district. By the end of the two-day event, your staff and safety stakeholders will have the skills, knowledge, and materials necessary to perform a full scale school safety and security audit that you can rely on.
Any of the following school safety topics can be addressed in a customized training for your personnel and/or stakeholders:
If you think getting a federal grant is hard…try surviving an audit. Keep your grantors and auditors happy by getting the training you need to properly manage your programs. Build your organization’s grant management processes, procedures, systems, and accounts with expert, onsite training from industry professionals. We will assess the audit-readiness of your existing initiatives and accounting systems, and provide seasoned guidance on surviving a federal (or other type of grant) audit.
Assessment Growth Coaching is a proven “data driven” strategy that can lead to major improvements in the test scores of students from elementary to secondary levels in all core subject areas. Once students and their teachers know what specific state standards have been mastered – or what standards have yet to be understood, they are much more motivated to target and learn those standards. For this unique 2 day service, our trainer will go to your education agency and work with your students – showing them how to chart and track their academic success as well as set academic goals. Each student will build a matrix of success and a plan for future achievement based on his or her own scores from your state curriculum assessments. Using the scores that have been aligned to each of the major standards/objectives, students are guided as they build a spreadsheet that incorporates personalized bar charts – showing them trends of academic growth or regression over time. These tools will become a permanent fixture in the classroom as children are supported in taking control over their academic achievement levels and goals.
If you are currently implementing a new teacher mentoring program but have not yet assessed the validity or effectiveness of the program, Resource Associates’ New Teacher Mentoring Program Assessment will be an ideal service for your school or district. Our trainer will conduct this service using validated tools, rubrics, and observation techniques to pinpoint the most useful strategies of the program as well as those strategies that are not effective. The trainer will then develop a detailed report of his/her findings along with an action plan that can be used for moving a program into the exemplary classification. If your school is not currently implementing a teacher mentoring program, Resource Associates can also help tailor a program to meet the unique needs of your staff. This service includes a needs assessment of the staff, development (or identification of) a customized teacher mentoring program and curriculum (including tools that can be used to assess the effectiveness of the program), and an action plan with timelines and benchmarks to guide implementation.
Does your school want to improve its student assessment scores? If so, Resource Associates’ expert trainers can help you to identify areas of need and assist in creating a structured plan for addressing those needs. Our plans and approaches are guided by research-based strategies that have helped thousands of other US schools to significantly improve student achievement. This Student Assessment Improvement Plan service is custom-designed to address the core content areas evaluated on state curriculum assessments. Resource Associates’ assessment process will help your school administration pinpoint the exact areas that are causing academic weaknesses. Our experienced education specialist trainers (who have 30 plus years experience as education administrators) will then use this information to assist staff in creating a plan to address and improve those areas and raise the bar on student achievement in your school.
Resource Associates’ Elementary Classroom Assessment Service is perfect for administrators and teachers who need help identifying the use of scientifically-based teaching strategies in the elementary classroom. Our team of successful Education Specialists will provide school staff with objective classroom observations – documenting the use of effective teaching strategies by the staff. These observations are not “judgmental” or “evaluative” but rather documentation of what is seen and heard during an observed 45 minute lesson of any of the core academic subjects. Our team will then develop a detailed report of its findings along with an action plan that the school can use for addressing the areas of need specific to each classroom.
Secondary teaching strategies vary from core subject to core subject, but the use of best practice in the classroom can be identified by the trained eye. This service will provide school staff with objective observations by experienced administrators and practitioners who will document exactly what was observed during a typical class period. The documentation can then be used to address areas of strength and weakness to help teachers improve and raise student achievement.
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