Can Schools Meet the Promise of Continuous Improvement
Continuous Improvement: Using a Systems Approach
Since our beginning, we have ensured the utilization of a continuous improvement approach to ensure high quality results. To this end, we have identified the most out-front aspects of our organization; refined them; and created improvement priorities that will enable the school to create an outlet for high performance. This Continuous Improvement Plan keeps our organization on the path of ensuring that we focus on improvement of organizational systems, in order to support learning at all levels.
Our Mission
As the premier online high school in the country, we are helping students achieve their goals of high school graduation and beyond by producing students who are high performers no matter what they choose to do in life.
Our Vision
Empowering Learning. Renewing Hope.
As a simple slogan and vision, these four words espouse the founder's vision of empowering individuals to take charge of their own learning, while renewing hope in the promise of education. Simple, but powerful.
Our Core Beliefs and Statement of Faith (How we ground our work)
- Orion believes that all learners, regardless of their past history with education, deserve a high quality, flexible way to learn content in a rich, supportive, online environment.
- Orion believes that learning is active and not passive. That online content can be rigorous and challenging, but can help learners exceed their own expectations for learning.
- Orion believes that content is not departmental - content must be integrated to be meaningful - to provide meaningful learning for learners.
- Orion believes that improvement is continuous and that Orion's existence is critical for learners who need to be challenged and need to be provided with the support necessary to be part of a high performing world outside of Orion.
No beliefs, mission, or vision, can be brought forth to fruition without our firm standing about why we do what we do.
- We believe that God calls us to His ministry. (Heb. 5:4)
- We believe that God has given each of us the responsibility of training up the youth of today. (Deut. 6:6-9)
- We believe that there is one head of the Church and our ministry, Jesus Christ. (Eph. 1:22)
- We believe that without the power of the Holy Spirit in us we can do nothing to glorify God. (Acts 1:8 & 4:6)
- We believe that love is the greatest gift that the Spirit can give us and only through God's love and grace to us can w esucceed. (Heb 13:9)
- We believe that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God and that we are to study and follow them. (I Tim. 4:13)
- We believe that Jesus Christ is central to all that we do in our lives and ministry. (2 Cor. 4:5)
- We believe in the rapture of the Church who will again come in glory at Jesus' return. (Titus 2:13)
- We believe that this ministry was conceived by the Spirit of God and will only last if we follow Him and not our own desires. (2 3:5-6)
- We believe that without the love of God dwelling in us that we can do no good thing. (John 13:35)
- We believe that as followers of our Lord Jesus we should also strive to be the best that we can in the field of education and training. (2 Tim 2:15)
- We believe that God will bless this ministry if it is in His will and without His guidance and blessing it will cease to exist. (Heb. 11:6)
How Are Our Values are Deployed?
The Core Values and Foundational Beliefs, spelled out at the beginning, are outlined here in a way that demonstrates our desire and purpose around creating results; however, no results can be garnered without the work needed to ensure that everything we do is based on those core beliefs. The core values of our school are the foundation for looking toward improvement and why improvement, if it is to occur, happens at the area of the organization that can utilize agility to access and implement those changes - and to gauge their impact through time.
Our Slogan and Vision
Empowering Learning. Renewing Hope. - This is the Vision that we espouse.
As a simple slogan and vision, these four words espouse the founder's vision of empowering individuals to take charge of their own learning, while renewing hope in the promise of education. Simple, but powerful.
Core values reflect our organization's growth and human capital. Our values are reflective of how we do business, what we hold true within our culture, and how we intend to continue to institutionalize a culture of quality. To that end, our values have changes through the same quality improvement processes espoused within the Baldrige Criteria:
| Our Values are based on the Criteria around these central themes |
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Founded by Teachers
A school founded by classroom teachers, Orion continues deploy the following beliefs about digital learning:
- Orion believes that all learners, regardless of their past history with education, deserve a high quality, flexible way to learn content in a rich, supportive, online environment.
- Orion believes that learning is active and not passive; that online content can be rigorous and challenging, but can help learners exceed their own expectations for learning.
- Orion believes that content is not compartmentalized. Content must be integrated to be meaningful, that is, to provide meaningful learning for our own learners.
- Orion believes that improvement is continuous and that Orion's existence is critical for learners who need to be challenged and who need to be provided with the support necessary to be part of a high performing world outside of our schools.
Orion Online Learning is an S-Corporation, formed by four partners, in 2007. The S-Corporation currently has two partners, Dr. Joseph Gallegos and Dr. Jeanne Morales. Dr. Morales serves as the corporate Vice-President and Dr. Gallegos serves as President. Dr. Morales also serves as General Counsel to the corporation and to the schools in the system.
Organizational Environment:
Our organization is based on the sound integration of the relationships that exist between the operations of our school, the results garnered through that integration, and the leadership strategies that encompass customer satisfaction, workforce performance, and using results to further our work. The graphic below is credited to the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, and guides our overall strategy.
Educational Program and Service Offerings:
Orion High School offers services for students who are in grades Kindergarten-12th, culminating with a high school diploma, for students who meet the diploma eligibility criteria. Orion High School utilizes a proprietary LMS, developed, refined, and improved by the founder, in order to deploy the course content to students. All courses have been developed in the areas of English Language Arts/Reading, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, for 6th grade - Adult, as well as a large number of Elective Courses. Advanced Placement courses have been developed and have been approved as appropriate, by The College Board.
Deployed courses are developed and are revised as needed, to meet the changing standards via the regulatory environment. Students utilize the courses/content in order to learn the content standards required for each course. Courses must meet our quality standards (through the Protocol for Content Development), in order to be deployed to students. It is imperative that the courses deployed both meet the Protocol, and are vetted for quality, but, it is important for our students to be able to navigate the content seamlessly, and to be able to acquire the requisite knowledge through each modules as it is constructed.
Workforce Profile and Results:
Orion's focus is on providing the most qualified, certified teachers to work with our learners. Teachers (called Mentors at Orion), are required to be certified by the regulatory agency in their State of residence. Industry professionals are recruited as well, in order to work with our learners in the areas of Career and Technology Education Pathways for Endorsement.. Those Mentors typically will have industry qualifications and/or an advanced degree in the field. Mentors receive induction training before beginning with live learners at Orion. In the induction/online course, Mentors learn how to navigate the online classroom, and learn how to use Orion's Mentor Center (an online self-help and learning center for Mentors), in order to hone their skills throughout their work with Orion. Learners who receive services from the mentor are provided with an end-of-course survey where they provide feedback in the areas related to customer service. The data are collected using a Likert scale from 1-5, with 1 being the lowest level of satisfaction, and five being the highest. The data are averaged for representation on the dashboard.
Workforce Indicators of Performance:
- Supporting the current mentors in professional activities that will enable them to be high performers for our learners. The activities will be online via the Mentor Center, as well as a focused convening (live) of the Mentors and Staff. By supporting and assisting our mentors, they in turn are equipped to provide the highest quality services to our learners.
- Supporting mentors and staff to utilize the tools in the Mentor Center. Tools in the Mentor Center change with technological advances. We change with those to provide our Mentors with the tools they need to be able to engage our learners in the highest quality digital learning and engagement.
- Providing ongoing coaching and mentoring of mentors through the digital learning environment. The coaching is defined in the Mentor Center, and requires the participation of a Coach to provide feedback following learner sessions. We provide ongoing coaching and mentoring in order to equip our mentors with peer feedback related to the engagement of learners in the digital classroom.
- Update our LMS in order to improve quality of tools such as the grade book, and video conferencing, as well as ease of navigation and operation for our mentors. We do this so that our learners may benefit by having a mentor who is equipped to manage a digital classroom that provides the tools necessary for engagement and learning.
- Continuous improvement and addition of Mentoring videos and handbook to provide the just in time training necessary for mentors to provide high quality services to learners.
- Recruit staff through external networking (current mentors nominate colleagues for mentoring positions at Orion).
- Quarterly supervision of Mentors through a coaching model in order to maintain Orion's quality standards
Because our learners benefit from our direct work with our Workforce, we purposefully gather data to determine directly from our learners, the extent to which our Mentors have helped them benefit from our Mentor Supports. The addition of the last data point, related to learner success, is defined in the survey as: "I feel successful after engaging with my Mentor each week." Here are the results, aggregated by Likert. Note that the data represent the respondent's rating of 4 and 5 (combined). The latest data were collected at end of school year, July 2021:
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Regulatory Requirements
Orion operates under the following regulatory requirements:
- Orion High School is accredited by the Association of Christian Teachers and Schools, and by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (affiliated with Cognia).
- Through accreditation, Orion follows the standards and practices required by our accreditors.
- The key regulatory requirements as required by ACTS and SACS, align to to "applicable State laws", as defined by the regulator.
- Orion was reviewed for accreditation renewal in 2017, and was granted accreditation through 2022.
- Orion is a candidate for accreditation with the Middle States Commission
Organizational Relationships
Organizational Structure
Orion Online Learning, Incorporated, is classified as an S-Corporation. The Board of Directors govern the Corporation's general functions, and defer to Orion High School's internal structures to lead the operation of the school, as well as to oversee the formation of the schools and to monitor the corporate assets, which include all financial assets as well as trademarks owned by the corporation. The Board of Directors do not function as a school board. Dr. Joseph Gallegos operates the corporate offices, which also serve as the schools' headquarters offices, in Midland, Texas. Dr. Gallegos serves as the policy making decision maker for all operations of the schools, and he seeks advice from stakeholders such as current learners, parents, mentors, and staff. A Lead Mentor is identified annually, in order to gather input from Mentors and from other stakeholders. That input is gathered formally during the annual meeting of the school's Mentors and Staff, and the work at that annual meeting drives the focused commitment from the stakeholders. Prior to Covid, Orion has held learner engagement conferences to focus on our work with learners and the communities we serve. Our next learner engagement conference will be in Summer 2023.
The purposeful decision-making structure is intended to remove all barriers for decisions affecting the operation of Orion High School. The policies of the schools are purposefully intended to be small in number so to not impede the continuous improvement of services to our customers; however, policies that are affected by the regulatory environment are adapted to ensure compliance. (See Cognia Educational Practices for Digital Schools).
Students, Other Customers, and Stakeholders
The key market segments are students who wish to enroll at Orion in grades 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and Adults who wish to become diploma eligible. That market segment, called full-time students, is the focus of our work, and is the segment that encompasses the majority of our enrollment. The second segment of students comes from students who take courses at Orion, and transfer those course credits/grades to their full-time school. That market segment is termed "credit transfer learners." Orion High School's stakeholder groups include internal stakeholders (Mentors and Staff), as well as external stakeholders/customers such as parents of underage students, and organizations who wish to assist students in enrolling at Orion High School. Stakeholder relationships may exist where a partnership is sought with the intention of engaging dropouts or potential dropouts. Those stakeholder relationships may exist as a an informal or formal relationship. Current relationships exist with Camden County High School (Georgia) and with Southern Dreams of Mississippi.
The charts below are indicative of the enrollments over time as well as the customer demographics of the school.
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Introduction to Continuous Improvement at Orion-A Systems Approach
Since our opening, Orion has ensured that quality continuous improvement is top priority in meeting the mission, vision, and priorities for our pioneering digital school. To that end, we have espoused the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence as the means to get to higher quality in the strategic areas we have determined are necessary to remain competitive and to offer the highest quality digital learning for learners in the 21st century. The value of the Baldridge Criteria, for our school, is in built-in reflection about the performance of the organization. Two critical questions drive both the reflection about our work, and the conversations about the priorities that we must set for continuous improvement. Those questions are:
- How well is each learner doing?
- How can we improve the learning of each learner?
Additional reflection causes us to also think about the impact of our internal and external processes on our customers:
- What are the levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction of learners, parents, and mentors?
- How well do we communicate with stakeholders and monitor the progress of all learners?
- How well and how often does the school collect and analyze data? How is that communicated to our customers and stakeholders?
- What resources, including opportunities for our learning about digital schooling, do we have in place to support the achievement of our learners?
A Systems Approach
A systems approach requires us to have internal and external processes that contain actions that can be easily deployed. The inherent benefit of using a systems approach is that processes can be improved at the lowest level possible, within the organization. What does that mean? That means that in our system, when an employee, who works within a process day in and day out, has the most knowledge about that process, therefore, has the ability to continuously improve on that process. For example, the registrar has a process for the requesting of and transfer records from a new learner's originating school. There are certain communication points that occur during that process, and the process a definite starting and ending point (the records are acquired and they are input). The registrar works closely within this process each and every day, therefore, the process improvement at her level makes the most sense. It would not make sense for Dr. Gallegos to improve the process from his vantage point, because he does not work as close to the process as does the registrar. A simple approach to process improvement is this:
- Plan - Plan for the process. Clearly define the process.
- Do - Deploy the process. Put the process into action.
- Study - Study the effectiveness of the process. Gather data from customers and stakeholder affected by the process.
- Act - Use the data to act upon the process, thereby improving the process. Start over with Plan.
At Orion, the following systems are critical to our operations and sustainability. Together these systems cause us to better understand a systems approach to digital learning:
- Leadership System - Processes must be in place to engage our customers; to sustain the organization; to review the organization's performance against the criteria; to be socially responsible; to govern ethically and responsibly; and to plan for succession.
- Operations System - Deployable, clearly defined processes are in place so that the school operations effectively. A smooth workflow, supported by the internal processes, allows for the smooth, day-to-day, operation of the school.
- Workforce System - Processes must be in place in order to engage our workforce (employees/internal customers), as well as our external vendors who provide instructional and other support services to our school. Engagement includes collaboration about our systems approach, with a focus on digital learning.
- Knowledge Management System - Processes to support the gathering of knowledge as we learn what we didn't know before. A sound system deploys processes which are supported by research, and then collects reliable data in order to manage by fact. At our school, we must consistently ask ourselves: What do we know now, that we didn't know before? How do we use that knowledge to benefit our learners?
- Customer System - In our customer system, we develop content and have a revision schedule for that content. Our content (as well as our LMS), must be understand and easily navigable by our customers. Our culture around digital learning extends beyond multiple choice assessments (which often cause 'management by bad results), into a clearer understanding about how formative tasks can better inform us about learning. In a customer system, we take feedback, including complaint feedback, and we build a culture of understanding, inclusion, and customer engagement.
- Planning System - A planning system for long-range and short-term goals requires us to think deeper about the deployment of such a system. A planning system takes the input of our customers (internal and external), and causes to place into our dashboard, the collection of data and results that inform those goals.
Below, we indicators of performance, that align to defined, as well as regulatory, improvement areas. Some data is shown above (related to customer service). The data collection, below, called The Digital Dashboard, helps to understand how we do what we do, and how we have ensured that quality improvement without bureaucracy has and will yield high performance for our learners, mentors, and staff members.
The Dashboard represents key areas of organizational performance represented by the most current results of data collected over time.
Dashboard Chart 1 - Performance Indicator 1: Customer Service
Definition: Learners will be satisfied with five key areas of service:
- feedback
- mentor availability
- support services
- flow of content (including navigation)
- reliability and uptime of CMS and LMS
Data Collection: Survey Data are collected at end-of-term, using the Customer Satisfaction Survey. The customer satisfaction survey measure on a Likert Scale of 1-5, with 1 being the lowest score assigned. The scale is converted to a 100% scale with an average of 5 being 100% on the gauge.
In addition to survey data, monthly calls to learners and parents occur, as well as orientation surveys. The surveys are collected over time. Graduate feedback is represented as qualitative data in another gauge.
Improvements over time: Pre and post course surveys were initiated in 2012, and were revised in 2014, and again in 2015 to better align with the organization's performance indicator and the update of the LMS. As a result of feedback, the following improvement areas have been identified in order to continue to increase customer satisfaction:
- Seek system accreditation from Middle States.
- Update the components of the LMS, focused on the improved performance of our learners and on technological advances.
- Create and deploy dual credit courses
- Deploy the AP Capstone Diploma Program
- Create and deploy a Family Advisory Council
- Phase out the General/Regular Pathway and implement it as the Foundation Pathway
- Continue to work with the Texas Records Exchange and Participate in Apply Texas transcript request.
- Open a digital school with a focus on New Mexico, the New Mexico Trinity Prep.
All of these priorities are identified so that we can continue to earn the trust of our customers, and to increase their satisfaction rates. The data, below, are aggregated from a customer satisfaction survey, and represent satisfaction scores at levels 4 and 5 (the highest):
Results - First, the Customer Satisfaction Survey Results:
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Dashboard Charts 2 and 3: Performance Indicator 2: Results of Assessments (ACT Assessment Comparison) and College Enrollment and RetentionDefinition: Orion will measure ourselves against others in three key areas (the fourth is under development):
Data Collection: College Board data are collected quarterly for CEEB Code 444731. College going and retention rates are calculated based on acceptance into college, and retention is collected at the end of year 1 of college. End of Course Assessment data is collected for those learners opting to take and/or required to take those assessments. In addition to College Board data, Orion calls college learners to speak with them about their first year, and calculates the retention rate based on that. Improvements over time: There were insufficient numbers of test takers (ACT and SAT) in the formative years of the school; however, since 2010, there are sufficient numbers of test takers to enable Orion to collect that data. Standards based assessments were developed in the core areas, to assess learners, as well as to assess all internally developed proprietary course. The following areas have been identified as areas for continuous improvement for Performance Indicator 2:
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Pioneering the LMS and Content Development
During the summer of 2006, Orion's founders created a set of courses utilizing the latest technologies available at the time. The latest technologies helped us create and package courses for uploading into the Learning Management System (LMS). Historically, Orion has created our own LMS with the assistance of some very talented programmers across the world. In the 'early days', we utilized a very simple delivery system, which housed our own forum, as well as messaging and instant messaging areas. We began loading SCORM compliant content into the LMS late in 2007, and have been on a development and revision schedule every since. The following table depicts our work:
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018--2019 | 2020-2021 |
| Revisions round 2 | Revisions round 3 and looked at drafts of CCSS | Realigned and adopted iNacol Standards for development. Started revision schedule | Continued realigned and alignment to iNacol, and ADA | Completed iNacol and ADA. Added 6 AP Courses and received approval. Developed formative tasks for core areas. | Completed formative task development for core. Revised algebra 1 | ACTS Accreditation | Revisions of Core Courses Developed digital tasks and digital assessments for all core courses. Added 12 Endorsement elective courses | Complete a revision schedule for OHS and AGS Rebrand courses for NM Trinity Prep Refine Endorsement Areas |
| Updated LMS to create a navigation for Middle School | Updated courses and Orientation Center | Completed round one of Orion Credit by Examination (CBE) | Updated to ADA standards, and to HTML5 requirements. Updated for mobile access. | Added a reporting component for attendance. | Updated our protocol for revision, and updated for inclusion of formative tasks in science and social studies. | Achieved ACTS accreditation | Created and deployed a credit recovery system. | Credit Recovery proctoring system Refine assessments with updated standards for Texas |
Through the years, we have added the following to our our community, and have then retro-fitted our LMS:
- The Commons - Our social community, called The Commons is a vibrant community where learners and mentors can get to know one another in a safe environment. Only registered learners and mentors and parents have access to the community. To date, the community residents have created groups for supportive causes; have created tutoring centers; and have otherwise gotten to know each other in the digital environment (outside of the classroom).
- Mentor Center - We have integrated a Mentor Center into our main area. The purpose of the Mentor Center is twofold: 1. A place for information that is pertinent only to mentors; and 2. a place where Mentors can learn about ours and their services in short time spans.
- We have integrated SMS into all course rooms; have integrated SMS as one of our communication features;
- We publish a weekly newsletter titled, "The Weekly Warrior", which is accessible by all, as well as a number of other newsletters.
- Added video calling for immediate communication with mentors and advisers.
- Scheduled chats for learner assistance.
- Implemented required graduation planning and exit procedures and updated the Social Area calendar to require RSVP.
Customer and Stakeholder Communication Processes
Communicating to customers and stakeholders requires an ongoing commitment to ensuring that the our organization's culture, purpose, vision, and mission, are shared among the groups. To that end, we publish and distribute through the following means:
| Receiving Group | Weekly Warrior Newsletter | Advising Notes | Mentoring Notes | Parent Newsletter | YouTulbe | Learn. Create. Succeed. | SMS Updates | ||
| Parents | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||
| Learners | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||
| Mentors | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||
| Partners | X | X | |||||||
| Staff/Other | X | X | X | X | X |
The effectiveness of our communication depends on two factors: Subcribers who self select a subscription, and whether or not the subscriber is reading and accessing the information once the information is sent.
Improvements over time: Communication and interaction survey were initiated in 2012, and were revised in 2020, to understand the means by which learners, mentors, parents, and staff frequently utilize social media as well as other media. Detailed data are collected utilizing our internal data system (mailing data), to determine whether or not messages were read, links were clicked, as well as other data. To that end, we have identified the following improvement areas for our communication plan:
- Increase Weekly Warrior subscriptions to enable all current learners and staff to receive and respond.
- Increase to 100% the number of mentors who read and respond to Mentor Updates. (currently that number is 90%)
- Added the ability to respond to SMS, not just receive
- Identified the persons responsible for daily updates on Facebook and Twitter to increase awareness, as well as system messaging.
- Improve and require RSVP for planning meetings
Planning Ahead
Contingency planning is an integral part of ensuring that Orion runs smoothly if in fact there is a break in service or if data are compromised. The first plan here, is a contingency plan in the event that servers and/or data are compromised:
"Provide, document and implement a systematic program to train professional and support personnel in the evaluation, interpretation, and use of data. Although we cannot anticipate crises, we can have a plan in place in the event crisis occurs. The chart, above, represents our crisis management in the event of data or file loss. We do that through redundancy. The table below, represents information regarding other types of crises that may occur:
| In the event of this occurring, we:
| In the event of this ocurring, we:
| In the event this occurs, we:
| In the event his occurs, we:
| In the event something that is not metioned here occurs, we provide any of the same services that we provide through the others specified crises. | In the event we have a loss of:
|
| Death of a Learner | Death of a Mentor Teacher | Loss of a family member | Mentor Leaves/Resigns | Localized Event-Crises at Home | Data Recovery and Retention |
Source: https://www.orionhs.org/index.php/about/improvement