continuous improvement plan user...

Alabama State Department of Education

Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) User GuideToday’s Improvement, Tomorrow’s Success

Prepared By:

Table of ContentsTable of Contents.........................................................................................................................................................2

General Overview........................................................................................................................................................3

ALSDE CIP Explained.....................................................................................................................................................3

Requirements...........................................................................................................................................................................................................3

Purpose....................................................................................................................................................................................................................3

Obtaining a User Account to the CIP............................................................................................................................4

Requesting an Account............................................................................................................................................................................................4

Logging Into the CIP Website...................................................................................................................................................................................6

Exploring the Home Page.............................................................................................................................................7

Exploring the School Plans Detail Page........................................................................................................................8

Exploring the Plan Page................................................................................................................................................9

Completing the First Plan...........................................................................................................................................10

Moving to Draft Started..........................................................................................................................................................................................10

Confirm The Move.................................................................................................................................................................................................11

Completing the Sections........................................................................................................................................................................................12

Sections I, V, VI.................................................................................................................................................................................................12

Sections II, III, IV................................................................................................................................................................................................13

Section VII.........................................................................................................................................................................................................15

Section VIII........................................................................................................................................................................................................16

Marking it Complete..............................................................................................................................................................................................17

Approval Process....................................................................................................................................................................................................17

Starting a Revision..................................................................................................................................................................................................17

Open Plan Dates........................................................................................................................................................18

Plan Section Locking...................................................................................................................................................19

- 2 - CIP User Guide

User Roles Summary..................................................................................................................................................21

Workflow Steps Summary..........................................................................................................................................22


General OverviewThis guide was created to provide a general understanding of the ALSDE CIP web site. In it you will find some information on requesting a user account to the website, what it means to complete the various plan sections, descriptions of the workflow states a plan can be in, a list of the roles users can have and other general miscellaneous information.

ALSDE CIP ExplainedAlabama’s Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) should be used by all schools in improvement and Title I schools not in improvement to facilitate the planning process. Three templates are available based on the specific school scenario: Title I Schoolwide, Title I Targeted Assistance, or Non-Title. The final plan must be approved by the local education agency’s (LEA’s) board members and signed by the superintendent, federal programs coordinator, principal, and committee members. A CIP is effective for a two-year period and should be reviewed and revised monthly.

RequirementsThe CIP should be developed by a school team that is representative of the challenges being addressed with support from the LEA. Team members that must be present include the principal, guidance counselor, district school improvement specialist (or other designee), appropriate content-area teachers, parent representatives, and student representatives (as appropriate). Depending on the data, additional members may include special population representatives (Technology Coordinator, Special Education, ELL, etc.), district federal programs coordinator, district chief school financial officer, community stakeholders, or any other member as appropriate.

PurposeThe CIP is a document that is designed to guide the school improvement effort of the school. It should be reviewed regularly and revised as needed in response to the school’s progress on the identified goals and strategies. Once the plan is Board-approved and signed, it is not necessary to obtain additional Board approval when revisions are made to the plan.


Obtaining a User Account to the CIPThis section explains how to request a username and password to access the CIP website.

Requesting an AccountIf you do not have an account and need to obtain one, you can submit a request to your School District’s Administrator via the CIP website.

You can reach this page by clicking on either the, Contact District Admin menu option or the Request a Login link


Obtaining a User Account to the CIP (cont.)Complete the form, selecting the District in which you belong to. With this form, you can let your district administrator know that you want an account for the CIP system. Please be specific as to what your role is with the district or at a school within the district.

Once the email is submitted, the district administrator has had time to review it and it was approved, you will receive an email giving you your username and temporary password.

An example email sent once you have had your account created:


Obtaining a User Account to the CIP (cont.)

Logging Into the CIP WebsiteOnce you receive the temporary password, you can now log into the website. Log in through the Login Menu section on the left hand side of the plan.

After logging in, you should be redirected to change your password.

After changing your password you are now an established user with the CIP system.


Exploring the Home PageOnce you are logged in and on the home page, the following are available.

1. Select a School – Displays the current schools you are affiliated with. These are the schools’ plans you can interact with in your given role. Clicking on a school here will take you to the CIP plans for this school.

2. Search Schools – Search for a school and see its plans. If you are not affiliated with the school, you will only see their public plans, if they have any.

3. Search Plans – Search for plans by type, status and when they were last updated. Once again, if you are not affiliated with the school plan you select, you will not be allowed to view it until it is public.

4. Contact District Admin – Send a message to selected district administrators.5. Account Menu – Update your profile information, change your password, sign out and view

your current session time remaining.


Exploring the School Plans Detail PageOnce you have selected a school, the following page is available.

1. School Details – Displays the school name, AYP status, service type and the date the data was last updated from eGap.

2. Plan Message – Gives you a brief message regarding the plans that can be worked on for this school. For more information see Open Plan Dates.

3. Plans Table– Displays the schools plans, their current workflow step and when they were last updated. If a plan has not been started, the last updated date will be the current date. Clicking on these links will take you to the plan for this school.

4. Plans – Once a school is viewed, this menu option will always bring you back to this screen.5. Address Book – Once a school is viewed, this menu option will display all of the associated users

with this school’s entire CIP process from data entry to final Superintendent approval.


Exploring the Plan PageOnce you select a plan to view, the following page will appear.

1. The Workflow – Displays the plan type, school, a link to the comments/change log, current workflow status, any instructional text for the workflow status, ability to change workflow status and link to print the plan.

2. Section Headers – Displays the sections of the plan. The current section is larger than the rest. Sections could have green check marks (they are complete) or a padlock (someone else is working on that section) next to them.

3. Plan Section – the section of the plan currently being viewed / edited.


Completing the First Plan

Moving to Draft StartedWhen you first access your schools plans, they are marked as “Not Started”. In order to start editing the plan, it must be moved to “Draft Started”. First, select the plan you want to start working on.

When on plan, click the link “Change To Draft Started” next to the Workflow Status in the workflow section:


Completing the First Plan (cont.)

Confirm The MoveYou’ll be required to confirm that you want to move the plan to the selected workflow state. You can also include any comments at this time.

Example of moving the plan’s workflow status

You’ll be directed back to the plan which now shows you are in draft started and can complete the plan.



Completing the SectionsIn order to mark a plan as Draft Complete and start the approval process with the principal, every required section needs to be completed. A section is considered complete when a green check mark is next to it.

Sections I, V, VIAll of these sections have a straight-forward question and answer format. All questions must be answered for a section to be complete and if they do not apply, typing “N/A” is acceptable.


Example: Beginning of a completed Section V


Completing the First Plan (cont.)Sections II, III, IVThese sections contain goals/challenges, strategies and action steps. They are hierarchical in nature since goals/challenges have strategies and strategies have action steps. For these sections to be complete, they must contain at least one goal/challenge with one strategy and one action step. Each piece of the tree must be fully complete as well. If a question does not apply, enter “N/A”.


Example: Tree view of Goals/Strategies/Action Steps


Completing the First Plan (cont.) Example: View of editing an Action Step within a Goal

Special Note:Higher levels of the tree structure can only be deleted once all children have been deleted. In order to delete a specific strategy, all actions steps within that strategy must be deleted before the strategy can be. All strategies must be deleted within a goal before it is allowed to be deleted. - 19 - CIP User Guide

The View All link will display all of the goals, strategies and action steps for a section on a separate web page.



Section VIISection VII contains a collection of learning activities and three yes/no selections. In order for Section VII to be complete at least one complete learning activity and the yes/no questions need to be answered. For a learning activity to be complete, all fields must be answered, enter “N/A” where applicable.


Example: View of a complete Section VII


Section VIII (This section is not required for Non-Title plans to be completed)


This section contains a breakdown of state, federal and local monies used by the school to run its program.

The State Foundation Funds section must be completely entered for this section to be complete. Enter 0 where appropriate. Note: the Total of All Salaries field is automatically calculated.

Example: Beginning of a completed Section VIII



Marking it CompleteOnce all sections are marked complete, you are beyond the Open Plan date range and are on the plan tied to your service type, the ability to move the Workflow Status to Draft Completed becomes available.

Approval ProcessOnce the plan is moved to Draft Completed it now starts down the approval process:

Principal -> Federal Programs Coordinator -> Superintendent

If any of the above do not approve the plan, it will switch back to an editable mode and it is up to the data entry users to make any changes as needed and change the status to Draft Completed and begin the process, again with the principal. Once the Superintendent marks it Superintendent Approved, the plan becomes available to the public.

Starting a Revision


When the time comes to start a revision, the workflow can be changed to Revision Started to begin editing a revised draft. The workflow steps are identical to the first time the plan was completed and approved.

Open Plan Dates

There is a timeframe built within the system that allows a school to start and edit any of the plan types, regardless of their current Service type. This is to allow schools which know they will be served a certain type to begin developing that plan before they are officially designated in eGap. A plan cannot be moved to draft completed until the deadline has passed.

Example: Message shown when in open plans date range

When outside of this time frame, the only plan that can be edited or moved is the plan that is assigned to the school based on the service type. The other plans will be available, but are read-only.

Example: Message shown when outside open plan date range and tied to your service type


Plan Section Locking When plans are in an edit mode, sections of the plan will be locked to the user who navigates to them first. When a section is locked, it will not allow any text editing or saving to be done by another user.


Example: A plan where section Ib is locked by another, note the padlock icon

Locks on plans will be held until one of the following actions occur:

1. The user with the lock navigates to any other page in the web site.

2. The user with the lock logs out of the website

3. The user with the lock has their session time out (30 minutes)

If by chance a lock was not released when it should have been, anyone who navigates to a page with a lock that was issued more than 30 minutes ago will force its release.

This will resolve the issues where a user is on a plan section page, then immediately closes their browser, not logging out. The lock will remain, but will be released after the elapsed time.


Plan Section Locking (cont.)A message will be shown to the user when they are on a section that is locked by another user.

Example: Note that the save button is gone and the answer text and spell check buttons are disabled.


User Roles SummarySchool Data EntryThese are individuals who can enter their schools data into the CIP system. They can mark the plan as Draft Started, Draft Completed and Revision Started.

PrincipalThese users can mark their assigned school’s plan as Principal Approved or Principal Not Approved.

Federal Programs CoordinatorThese are users who can mark the schools in their assigned district as Federal Programs Coordinator Approved or Federal Programs Coordinator Not Approved.

SuperintendentThese users can mark the schools in their assigned district as Superintendent Approved (making it a public plan) or Superintendent Not Approved.

District AdministratorThese are users who can create users and assign them roles at the district level or at the school level within the administrator’s assigned district.


Workflow Steps SummaryNot StartedThe specific plan has not been started. The only role who can move the plan into Draft Started is a School Data Entry user.

Draft StartedA draft of the plan is in progress. Once all sections are complete, it can be moved to Draft Completed by a Data Entry user.

Draft CompletedA draft of the plan is complete. The principal of the school is notified that they can now approve or not approve the plan.

Principal Not ApprovedPrincipal did not approve the plan and it now goes back to a Data Entry stage, where the plan is edited as needed and marked complete for principal approval.

Principal ApprovedPrincipal has approved the plan. The Federal Programs Coordinator for the district is now notified that the school’s principal has approved it and they can now either approve or not approve it.

Federal Programs Coordinator Not ApprovedThe Federal Programs Coordinator has not approved the plan and it now goes back to a Data Entry stage where the plan is edited as needed and marked complete for principal approval to start the approval process over.

Federal Programs Coordinator ApprovedThe Federal Programs Coordinator has approved the plan. The Superintendent for the district is now notified that they can now either approve or not approve it.

Superintendent Not ApprovedThe Superintendent has not approved the plan and it now goes back to a Data Entry stage where the plan is edited as needed and marked complete for principal approval to start the approval process over.

Superintendent ApprovedThe Superintendent has approved the plan. The plan is now considered public and is available for any person (logged in or not) to view on the website. The form will remain public until a Data Entry user moves the plan to Revision Started.


Revision StartedA revision has been started on the plan. Once the revision is complete it can be moved to Draft Completed to start a new approval process beginning, again, with the Principal. The only role that can move to Revision Started is School Data Entry.


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