Creating Productive School Cultures: Using Data-Driven Decision Making to Improve the Outcomes of At-Risk Students

Creating a school that focuses on best instructional practices is a large part of a principal's focus when running a campus. It is the principal's responsibility to ensure that internal and external stakeholders can see the school's defined mission. The campus leadership is responsible for making instructional decisions that best fit the needs of the students they serve. Specifically, in this study, the researcher focuses on evaluating how teachers support the needs of the at-risk students they serve on an alternative education campus. The action research that has been designed seeks to understand how teachers make instructional decisions, how they use professional learning communities (PLC), and how campus leadership can foster a productive school culture that focuses on collaborative efforts and not those mandates. Through a series of interviews, peer coaching, and instructional support, it was found that teachers lacked enough training and support; in order for the PLC model to be practical; therefore, there were no data practices really in place to see a practical difference in the instructional practices of the campus. Through this study, themes and other key ideas were outlined on creating productivity through campus data.