SCHOOL SITE COUNCIL PURPOSE

When the School Improvement Program (SIP) and the School-based Coordinated Program (SBCP) were established, they were envisioned as ways to increase school-wide effectiveness, improve student achievement, and, over time, better prepare students to be productive workers and responsible citizens. One of the principal tenets of these programs was that those individuals closest to the students should be more involved in making significant decisions affecting the instructional program of the school. The School Site Council (SSC) was selected to be the vehicle by which the school community would come together to chart the school's path to improvement.

The SSC is uniquely suited to carry out this function since it is representative of all segments of the school community. Being composed of the principal, teachers, other school personnel, parents, and students, it provides a forum for all of the major players in the school to come together to identify common goals and establish a plan to achieve these goals. The SSC's success depends upon both the ability and the willingness of all those involved in the process to work together in a cooperative manner to develop an effective curricular and instructional program in which all students may attain higher levels of academic competence.

As the SSC goes about allocating the supplemental resources, it should strive to keep its focus on establishing and maintaining a comprehensive and ongoing strategy to improve curriculum and instruction. The SSC should not limit its vision to using the supplemental resources as merely a source of money to be used to meet the demands of the moment or to purchase a single fixed solution to be used in perpetuity. Instead, it should establish and maintain a vision of the skills and knowledge students will need to be competitive in a modern economy and then use the available supplemental resources, along with the existing base resources of the school, to make this vision possible for all students in the school.

The school's improvement effort should also be coordinated with the district's effort to upgrade its curriculum offerings and quality of instruction in order that both the school - through the SSC - and the local governing board - the district office - become part of a single improvement effort.

Finally, as districts in California begin to experiment with new forms of site decision-making and to rethink current governance as part of the movement to restructure their schools, they should build on what is already in place. In fact, the basic premise underlying the restructuring movement in California and around the nation is the same as the guiding principle of school improvement; that is, that the individuals closest to the students should be more involved in making decisions which affect the instructional program of the school.