The comprehensive needs assessment process is an essential step in the development of the comprehensive Schoolwide Program Plan (SWP) because it provides a composite summary of the existing school program. The comprehensive needs assessment process, then, identifies school program deficits. Once the analysis process is complete, a comprehensive SWP can be developed that addresses the needs of all students. Federal guidance (DOC; Outside Source) issued in 2006 provides a thorough and specific overview of the comprehensive needs assessment process.
Generally, information incorporated into the comprehensive needs assessment analysis includes:
- Data relating to student achievement, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and school governance and organization
- Student data, including disaggregated achievement data analysis, classroom work, attendance data, and student transfer data, dropout data, language and ethnicity data, and gender data
- Student data including student access to books, supplies, extended learning opportunities and other support systems
- Teacher data, including teacher language fluency, experience, degrees, credentials, and special certification
- School level data including total instructional full-time employees, class size, instructional dollars per pupil, special grants and funding, support staff, technology available in the school, and staff professional development type and frequency
- School/family relationship data, including parent participation, parent satisfaction, and parent involvement in planning and implementation, frequency of parent education and training, resources for training, frequency of teacher/parent contact, and frequency of school/parent contact
- Community data, including poverty level, demographics, housing, employment, business, police department, social service program, homeless, public health, migrant, tribal council, transportation, and parks and recreation
The comprehensive needs assessment generally takes the form of a survey instrument. Surveys can be distributed and information can be gathered creatively: door to door, by phone, by interview, at community meetings, from school and district databases, or by any reliable means.
Analyzing the results of the comprehensive needs assessment surveys is an important and necessary step before the writing and implementation of the comprehensive SWP plan. School staff should use the data compiled as a result of the comprehensive needs assessment process to plan and design the successful comprehensive SWP plan. School staff and communities should discuss the multiple indicators and analyze their impact on the adequate yearly progress of students. The academic progress of target populations should be evaluated. School programs that are developed as a result of the comprehensive needs assessment process should be incorporated into the comprehensive SWP plan. Programs included in the SWP plan can be funded by blended state, local, and federal funds.
The following example illustrates the benefit of completing the comprehensive needs assessment: Comprehensive needs assessment survey results at Washington Elementary School indicate that students who are farthest away from demonstrating proficiency on the state academic content standards could benefit from extended learning opportunities. As a result of this finding, a program is developed and incorporated in the comprehensive SWP plan that provides for extended learning opportunities for students. The fiscal benefit of the SWP school is that the extended learning program can be funded either by a single source of funding or by a consolidation of multiple local, state and federal funding sources blended together to support the program. Students served by this extended learning program should be the children most in need of the service, regardless of and with no reference to Title I status.
