Needs+Assessment+and+Identification+of+Focus+Area

Needs Assessment and Identification of Focus Area 

Currently in our business department at Smyrna High School we offer 3 different business pathways. They are: · Accounting · Administrative Services · Business Information Technology Within those pathways we offer the following types of courses: · Introduction to Accounting · Advanced Accounting · Computerized Accounting · Integrated Business Technology · Excel/Access · IC3 · A+ · Advanced Word and PowerPoint · Desktop Publishing <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">· Website <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">· Entrepreneurship

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Although we offer a good variety of courses, I feel we are (a) in need of a software upgrade and in need of turning our semester courses into full year courses and (b) lacking a pathway that will make us more competitive with other schools and give our students a better edge.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">(a) Need of Software Upgrade – Most of our software was updating a year ago when we switched to Microsoft Office 7, however our Desktop Publishing and Website software have not been updated or expanded in several years. Because we have been working with limited software these two classes are only half year or semester classes. We polled our students at the end of last year and asked if they would be interested in a Desktop Publishing and Website class that offered a more variety of software choices and ran the entire school year. The numbers were outstanding as far as interest level. Our students enjoy taking Desktop Publishing and Website the most and we are limited to their potential by our current software.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">We asked approximately 450 existing business education students (excluding seniors) two questions: <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Would you be interested in taking a year long Desktop Publishing course? <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Would you be interested in taking a year long Website course? <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">These were our findings based on student responses:

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">(b) Lacking a pathway – By upgrading our software for Desktop Publishing and Website we will be giving our students much needed tools to be successful in these areas of focus and we can then expand our department offerings to include a Marketing Communications pathway. We have established that there is a need for a Marketing Pathway at Smyrna High School. We know this because of incoming students from other schools, instate and out of state have requested some type of marketing course and our existing business students are asking for it as well. Because we don’t have a marketing curriculum our guidance staff is giving our students the closest thing and that is Entrepreneurship. Of the surrounding areas schools that I could find a business curriculum listed on their school websites the following schools have a marketing pathway or course: Capital School District-Dover High School, Caesar Rodney School District-Caesar Rodney High School and Polytech School District-Polytech High School.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">The software upgrade and the addition of the Marketing Communications pathway will allow our students to use various new software, we currently aren’t using that businesses are using today. It will prove to be an exciting and beneficial change for our business department. Not only will it give us new course selections for students our current Desktop Publishing class and Website class will be able to use the features of the new software to help increase student learning and achievement.