How can we use the ISO process to help improve schools?

Many companies use ISO processes to systematically look at and improve their company. School districts and individual schools can benefit from the same ISO process. You can learn more about ISO here. This flowchart shows the structure of ISO 9001, and below we show it can be used in schools

Context of the organization

For a business – how is it organized? What is their QMS (quality management system?)

For a school – how is the school system organized? It usually looks something like this:

City or town school committee -> Superintendent -> School district teams and Principals -> Each individual school teacher and staff structure.

What kind of QMS do we find in schools?

Each school collects data on grades, attendance, safety, college or trade school or career acceptance, etc. They send this data to the appropriate district teams for discussion and analysis. This information should be made available to the school committee and general public.

Leadership

For a business, what are the leadership levels? They often look like:

President -> Vice president -> Department managers -> Employees within each department.

For a school, what are the leadership levels?

Principal -> assistant principals or deans ->teachers and paraprofessionals -> Students

Planning

For a business, what are the objectives and how does it achieve the objectives?

For a school, what are the objectives and how does it achieve the objectives? They may include:

* Promote a safe environment both for teachers and students

* Promote college and/or career readiness

* Develop young women and men into confident, self-directed, lifelong learners

* Develop young women and men to become productive members of their community

Support

For businesses – Resources, awareness, communication, documented information.

For schools –

Resources: Most classes have rooms with sufficient chairs and desks, bookshelves, supplies, manipulatives, lab equipment, textbooks (whether physical or digital;) computers/Chromebooks; school library, etc. Similarly, we can define what resources should be available for music, art, physical education, vocational education, special education, English Language Learners education, etc.

Awareness – There should be a structure for both teachers and students to have their concerns and needs heard by the administration.

Communication – Teachers communicate in regular department meetings and through email. The school has meetings for department heads for cross-curricular issues. There are whole-school meetings for all faculty/staff.

Documented information – This includes, but is not limited to, textbooks, teacher texts, worksheets, sample essays, quizzes, exams, labs, etc. (physical or digital,) and the district’s official learning standards (which may be local, state, national, or a combination thereof.)

Operations

For a business, we clearly define the production and delivery of products/services.

For a school we clearly define the creation/revision of pacing guides and lesson plans; and the implantation of these in the classroom, music room, art room, gym, etc.

Performance evaluation

For businesses: Is the product being made correctly? Monitoring, measurement, analysis, evaluation, internal audit. Management review.

For schools – Informal discussions, and asking questions, with students throughout the day. School quizzes and tests. State or national mandated standardized exams.

Improvement

For businesses – Identify any nonconformities and then decide what corrective actions would be helpful. A goal is continual improvement.

For schools – The parallel to nonconformities in schools could include –

– a student demonstrating that they didn’t (yet) learn certain facts; haven’t (yet) understood how individual facts were related in a greater whole; or haven’t (yet) mastered certain skills.

– a teacher demonstrating that they didn’t (yet) master how to create/revise pacing guides and lesson plans, or (yet) fully implement classroom management skills.

– an administrator demonstrating that they didn’t (yet) master how to help new or struggling teachers, how to help teachers who may feel targeted by students or parents, how to help students who have learning problems, how to help teachers or students who may be experiencing discrimination, etc.

and then decide what corrective actions would be helpful. The goal is continual improvement.