Action Research - Paving the way for school improvement

Action research is a process used to help the learning of students while simultaneously improving the skills of the teachers.  A group of educators would come up with a problem that needs to be addressed at the classroom, campus or even district level.   Researching possible solutions and analyzing data help the group focus on the most effective solution.  Following the research the group would share their results with a wider community.  I am looking forward to following the steps involved as I try to come up with possible solutions to the issues of parent involvement and public perception of the school district.  These two issues have a detrimental effect on the performance of our school.  I intend to use studies showing the positives of parental involvement as a basis for the research project.  Surveying the parents of our students, contacting other schools for ideas to help improve parent performance, and identifying measurable goals that can help show improvement made.  Improving public perception will benefit from a more informed group of parents that will begin to happen when the parents are more involved at the school.  A part of this process will be researching ideas of improving the perceptions of different groups - seniors, parents, business leaders.  This process could have a long lasting effect on our present students and our future students.