Official DESE Communications

The Executive Summary offers a concise description of the sustainable improvement plan that: provides a snapshot of the school, articulates its vision, highlighting what makes this plan a new approach to improvement, and outlines key improvement strategies.

Executive Summary Guidance

There are myriad resources available on how to write an executive summary. While DESE does not specifically endorse a particular one, some universal themes that appear throughout the literature are:

• Keep it concise
• Provide a snapshot or brief profile of the school (i.e., demographic information, what makes the school unique, among others)
• Clearly convey the vision for the school's sustainable improvement efforts
• Describe what's unique and exciting about your school and the plan for the coming years
• Write the executive summary after the sustainable improvement planning process is complete
• The target audience for the Executive Summary is your key stakeholders such as students, teachers, families, school committee, and community, not DESE
• Write in language that the average stakeholder can understand; limit jargon
• Ensure translation services are used so that stakeholders can fully access the content of the Executive Summary and other sustainable improvement plan documents
• Suggestion: Have a stakeholder read the summary and ask them to share what they took away as the headlines

Initial Sustainable Improvement Plan Requirements:

Required Written Submission

Summarize the following information in 2–4 pages:

• A snapshot or brief profile of the school
• Brief summary of the vision for the school
• Outline the selected strategic objectives and initiatives aligned to the Turnaround Practices
• How the strategies will address the root causes of the challenges the school faces that will be used to accelerate improvement
• How this plan represents a new approach to improving the educational experience for children

Annual Renewal Plan Requirements:

Required Written Submission

Update the school's existing Executive Summary to ensure it accurately reflects the overall approach to sustainable improvement and the strategies to be implemented in the coming school year.