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Washington CSD ‘strategic plan’ nears completion
Kalen McCain
Nov. 28, 2023 1:25 pm
WASHINGTON — A group of Washington school district students, staff, administrators and community members is close to announcing a “strategic plan” after roughly a year spent in planning.
Superintendent Willie Stone said the guideline would offer a comprehensive list of the district’s priorities, and how every class, requirement and policy relates to them.
“For student success, we have plotted out things we want to do and what we want to achieve over five years,” he said. “Not only do we have an action plan for five years, under that we have a plan for every one of those years … It’s going to be a very important document for us, everything in our district will tie into that, and if it doesn’t, then we shouldn’t be doing it.”
Stone said the goal was to have the document finished and shared with the community by this January or February, in time to account for some goals aimed at the current school year.
The document will include at least four broad goals, which have already been discussed at previous school board meetings. They include:
- Student Success: or more specifically, empowering students “with skills to be successful in their personal and professional lives.”
- Effective Resource Management: with an emphasis on “fiscal stability,” overall efficiency, and providing “resources to support teaching and learning.”
- Community Engagement: a goal that focuses on promoting “active engagement” among students, parents, staff and businesses in the district.
- Workforce Development: including a “grow your own” initiative to prepare students for a possible future as educators, and an increased presence at teacher-recruiting job fairs.
While the list may seem broad, Stone said the guiding document represented a revolutionary way of thinking about the school system.
“We’re really excited about the direction it’ll end up taking us,” he said. “It’ll help us communicate to our (community) where we’re at and what our goals are … and how we’re going to get them. It’s a big document and it’s taken a long time, but it’ll be something we believe will be very helpful for the district in the future.”
The emphasis on measurable success means the district can, in theory, determine exactly how successful any policy or activity is at accomplishing its goals.
Stone said the shared sense of understanding would make it easier to coordinate programming between buildings, across every student’s academic career.
“We’re really trying to get our buildings to work … so there’s a smooth transition,” he said. “In order to do that, we need to have district guidance on where we want to go so it ties everything together … what needs to be taught, maybe, at Stewart, that we’re not teaching? We can have those discussions all the way through K-12, which is a big deal.”
Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com
