Strategic Plan Refresh
The District is preparing a "Strategic Plan Refresh". They will review the Strategic Plan and decide which projects to continue, alter, defer, or remove. The refresh will have to include goals, timelines, status, and budgets for each of the projects.
I spoke with Mark Teoh last night and asked if he could include two items in the Refresh program:
1) A record of the various projects in the Strategic Plan, including those that were originally in it, those that were added, those that were completed, and those that were simply dropped without notice. Remember how there was supposed to be an APP Review in the plan? Remember how there was going to be an alternative education review? These projects just silently faded away. At the same time, Capacity Management and World Language curricular alignment, which were not part of the original plan, have been added.
2) A review of the community engagement protocols and some table that shows which of the projects are meeting the requirements of the protocol (it's easy - none of them).
What would you like to see in the Strategic Plan Refresh?
I spoke with Mark Teoh last night and asked if he could include two items in the Refresh program:
1) A record of the various projects in the Strategic Plan, including those that were originally in it, those that were added, those that were completed, and those that were simply dropped without notice. Remember how there was supposed to be an APP Review in the plan? Remember how there was going to be an alternative education review? These projects just silently faded away. At the same time, Capacity Management and World Language curricular alignment, which were not part of the original plan, have been added.
2) A review of the community engagement protocols and some table that shows which of the projects are meeting the requirements of the protocol (it's easy - none of them).
What would you like to see in the Strategic Plan Refresh?
Comments
A total Highly Capable program review (including Spectrum and APP).
Ditto on alt education.
If so, I'd love to see a transparent reconciliation of the intended vs. actual savings.
There's another round of transportation changes happening right now, and I'm not sure how much I believe as far as promised savings vs. what savings were (and will be) actually realized.
And I second the call for the Highly Capable review, it's just dropped off the radar entirely. All the concerns about the APP split were given short shrift, and of course many of those concerns have come to be and are being ignored. Spectrum is still flailing with little support, and ALO implementation is so inconsistent I'm not sure what it really means anymore, or which schools are actually implementing it.
The Alt review didn't entirely disappear. In part because there was no organization with any experience in evaluating alternative schools like ours (my perception is that the organization they were set to use thought our Alts were re-entry programs), the Alt assessment has morphed into a self assessment being organized by the Alternative Schools Coalition working with John Miner (Thornton Creek principal) and Dr. Enfield. Surveys are circulating RIGHT NOW at all the Alts to evaluate how well staff and families think the schools are doing relative to the key elements of alt education outlined in the Alt School Report of 2005.
If you have kids or teach at an Alt school (Nova, Orca, Pathfinder, Pinehurst,Salmon Bay, Thornton Creek, TOPS) please fill out your survey as soon as possible! (I believe Nova students also have survey)
I'm actually okay with the new approach in place of the alternative education review - I think. I don't know that much about it. The District hasn't really been public about what they are doing, why, or how. That's really all that's necessary.
I fully support their authority to change the plan. I just think that if they are going to change the plan then they need to tell people that they are changing the plan. They announce these efforts in a big public way, but then they retreat from them quietly.
This sounds like great news to me. I'd heard some rumors some time back, but without a child at an alt right now I was not aware of how far this progressed.
I think one has to be careful about "self-assessments" to make sure all stakeholders are properly represented and involved, but it sounds like you guys are on the right track. Fingers crossed.
grumpy