Analysis the Gap and Need High School

Introduction

Every school starts from a baseline a backboard that creates traditions and remarks. These traditions start with passion that the people build year after year. Each and every educational setting holds internal and external factors that shape the environment. Within each school we do an analysis called the SWOT; we look into strengths, weaknesses, opportunity and threats to the educational growth and determine causes and efforts for improvement. This is when a business looks deep into the understanding of the four classifications and creates a plan for development.

We previously looked into an educational setting located in the low country of South Carolina named Beaufort High School home of the Eagles. After we perform the SWOT we do a second analysis called the gap and need analysis. Stated by Brown (1989), “a gap analysis approach was employed in which the importance of key skill and knowledge areas to one’s current employment were contrasted with perceptions of their own academic preparation in these areas.”

Gap and Need

When we examine the gap analysis we are looking into the steps that are needed to make changes to get to our desired state of wants and goals. Within the educational setting of Beaufort High school we looked into the characteristics that factor into the performance and the events of the current situations that the school is facing for improvement. The purpose of the gap analysis is to make sure that the educational setting (high school) uses its resources to the best ability to avoid low potential rates. The gap looks at directions, possessions, outlooks, organization and the technology resources. The need is a technique used to determine what or who needs to be trained within the organization. It looks deeper into finding that does not fit within the element of growth to make the perception greater.

SWOT

The SWOT analysis is used determine four main characteristics within the educational setting to understand the cause and effect of the schools environment. It is broken down into four sections being strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats. As stated by Gurel (2017), “SWOT Analysis is an analysis method used to evaluate the strength’, weaknesses, opportunities and threats involved in an organization, a plan, a project, a person or a business activity”.

Revisit

Let’s take a look back at the educational setting we briefly mentioned prior Beaufort High school in South Carolina. We discussed that Beaufort high school help strengths being it is located in a military town and has great word to mouth communication. The weakness were low income rates, low staff rates and minimal traffic ways. We can a gap here due to the way our resources are being used being that it is low funding; we can plan for growth by paying attention to this. The opportunities we found that have gap space were room for growth, and historical means. The analysis were found for this growth would be due to the training we could use to have specialized classes. The threats that were found in the gap that allow for potential development were the climate changes, drug use and low income. We can find ways to supply our resources to better these factors to create the best environment of the school.

Plan Ahead / How to use Gap

To plan for next year we needed to look into each category of factors in the school. When you make a plan you want to look at aspirations you have, what dream are you looking to find? The dream we want for Beaufort High school is to become a home for the students, to build the trust from within the community and create an environment that is growing positively. We looked at the stakeholders of the school being most importantly the students and came to the conclusion that what they need to growth is comfort and trust. In order to build that we came to agreements that we need to get the students involved. A great way for us to do this was by coming up with spirit weeks themes per grade level. This could allow for the students to expand there creative side and show personality that normally would be hidden. We wanted to do this design to create a bond though the student body to the faculty by sharing the memories and to show that you can be yourself any day. We also agreed that building a community student ran center within the school that opened before school hours and allowed students to get material that is needed would help with a trusting bond. The materials would be donated by the parents, staff and faculty for those enrolled in the school. Our third idea of growth in the new school year was to have parents’ community meeting once a month that would allow for the parents to raise any concerns that they may have. This would allow for the tension to be broken by sharing idea parents may have about the community and see what possible growth the parents may want. The parents are the second largest stakeholder because they are the ones responsible for the students, they guide the children. If the parents feel involved and in-tuned with the school and their child’s life an alliance can form. One of the greatest factors that we looked into for the funding issues the school faced was how can we build funding with technology. We determined that technology is becoming a major part of our daily lives including schooling. By having technology in the classroom many students can complete school work that they may not have access to at home. This could also lead to teachers having more access to the material that is needed verse having to wait to print things out, it is easy and quick access. In the long run having the technology needed in the classroom can also allow for versatile teaching so we could be able to cross train.

Conclusion

Within in every educational setting we want to create the best bond, environment, tactics, growth and traditions for the years to come. In order for us to do this we need to run an analysis on the internal and external schooling environments. As an educational setting we focus on the students, parents and community and how we can further them. We want to look into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and the gap that those are missing so we can come up with a game plan to develop a strong foundation. The gap and need analysis looks into the SWOT and determines what trainings are needed and changes to create a healthy environment.

Reflection

As a college student you view the university or college you attend as home. We all want to live in a positive, enhanced, and growing environment. Inside of a college or any school for the matter has as background and story to tell. The students create that story by starting traditions, making plans and acting on them. The parents play a major role in the growth of school and community by their participation.

In module four we looked at the aspects of the SWOT analysis determining the strengths, weakness, opportunity, and threats of the school. To be honest growing up students view a school by the sports team and extracurricular. We see it as a fun going, party filled, when is my next assignment due world. In the SWOT analysis we view characteristic that most who don’t work in a school would look upon. It allowed myself to really take a look into the school I was working as a Child Service Professional. Working in that setting I was able to see what factors targeted the child specifically whose case I was looking over. This module allowed myself to realize that the school setting itself plays a role into the actions of the students, the demeanor that they pour out each day. I was able to look into how the community affects the school- it can be the income, location, word to mouth perceptions. The community place a major role in the perception of the school and many base the school solely off of this. They see it as what shops are around here, what sports we can do, is there a beach, we view materialist items over educational. The people are a major factor when it comes to viewing a school, when we start a new school or move to a new area we only know what we are told, which starts our first perception of the school until we can create our own experience for ourselves.

These two modules allowed for myself to understand that everyone starting from a local business to a concerned parent all the way to the principal create the educational dynamic that makes the schools name.

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