Here is a standard planning model. It is sometimes difficult for organizations to make their way around the full circle. Many organizations fail in the evaluation and re-assessment. Success4 is designed to help local schools and their community partners complete that circle, continuing to improve and refine their services to children, youth, and families.

Success4 provides a framework for the assessment process. It gives the local school-community partnership options that help them meet needs and achieve results they identify during their assessment phase. This selection of the best practices for specific needs constitutes the core of the planning process.

Once the needs have been determined, a plan should be established to satisfy those needs. Planning will help you avoid distractions and keep the process moving forward in logical order. Planning also gives others a chance to contribute to the process and, perhaps, offer options that are based on sound research.

As the local partnership moves into the implementation phase, it is important that they have appropriate tools, resources, skills, and expertise to effectively implement the changes they are planning. Again, Success4 is designed to provide those supports.

As implementation proceeds, Success4 provides the support and technical assistance that allows the local school-community partnership to refine, expand, and generally improve its efforts, and continue to improve its delivery system.

Evaluating methods and procedures makes it possible to refine the Success4 process. It allows you to retain those tools and techniques that work and discard those that do not work. Over time, the Success4 process will become more and more efficient and productive. It will enable local schools to make a real difference in the lives of their students.

The Operational Model is intended to demonstrate a dynamic, ever-changing, always-learning system which grows and builds on its own experience to provide ever-improving information and services to the children, families, and communities that ultimately benefit from the Success4 process.

Obviously, this is not a linear process. Many activities and interventions may be taking place at once, the interventions may occur in a difference order, and special conditions may emerge which require immediate, out-of-sequence responses.

The local school-community partnership is in the best position to know and understand its own needs. At the same time, a broader perspective, special expertise and access to information, services, and resources can reinforce and enhance that effort.

It is the role of the Area Education Agency, consulting with the local partnership, to provide that support and technical assistance.

The state’s role is to provide similar support to the Area Education Agencies. The state can ensure that current research, appropriate resources, and share opportunities fully equip the Area Education Agencies to provide appropriate support to the local school-community partnerships.

The two-way arrows demonstrate that this is not a one-way process. Learning takes place at all levels at all times. While local partnerships are learning from the AEAs, the AEAs are learning from them and sharing that information throughout their area. At the same time, the state is learning from the experience of the AEAs and sharing that knowledge throughout the state.

From your experience with the Operational Model, it should be easy to see that Success4 is a dynamic, interactive, and collaborative process. It is an adaptive program that changes to meet the varying needs of the people who use it. That makes Success4 unique, ideal for families, schools, and communities in the state of Iowa, whose commitment to education is unsurpassed anywhere.

If you would like more information about Success4, please contact the Iowa Department of Education for our free video: 1-515-281-3176.