The Columbia School District Board of Education and the Administration are launching a new initiative to guide the district through a three- to five-year Strategic Plan. The process will include community and staff input events, data collection and other efforts to create a shared vision and goals for the future of the district and strategies to achieve them, all while using scarce public education resources in the most effective and efficient way.
Stakeholder feedback will be an important part of the planning process. Community members, parents, students, teachers and all district staff members will have the opportunity to give input on the strengths of the district, opportunities for improvement, barriers for implementation and their vision for the district. Stakeholders may submit their input through a short five question survey available at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r...
Stakeholder input, along with essential district data, provides the basis for the district to choose approximately five priority goals to be implemented over the next three to five years.
The benefits of the strategic planning process are many. Most notable are:
- Provides integrated, important input from community and staff
- Presents a succinct and graphical picture of the district’s current status
- Sets focused strategic goals that identify target areas to improve student achievement
- Clearly delineates the role of the Board of Education and the superintendent/staff in strategic planning
- Uses data to set goals and make important decisions
- Helps identify areas to allocate increasingly scarce resources
- Aligns Board priorities with school improvement processes
Bob Wahr, the Columbia School District Board of Education President stated, “As school board members, we have to make the best decisions in these challenging, changing times. It is essential we use data forecasting and stakeholder input to make decisions and set shared priorities for the future pf our district.”
Debbie Stair, M.N.M.L., Assistant Director of Leadership Development at the Michigan Association of School Boards, will work with Columbia School District for the next three months to complete the strategic plan. Stair said, "Columbia School District and MASB have worked together to design a customized process that ensures broad stakeholder involvement and will result in an effective strategic plan implementation. We look forward to involving the community in this process.”