Section:2000 Administration
Policy Name:Comprehensive Strategic Planning
Policy Number:2250
Date Approved:10/10/1989
Last Revised:5/9/2011


The Plainville Board of Education is committed to comprehensive strategic planning, which is defined as the annual process of determining the needs of stakeholders and developing the services and processes required to meet those needs, generally within a 3-5 year horizon. Planning provides a framework for linking district vision, mission and goals with priorities, action plans, and assessments. Moreover, while the Board believes in the total planning process, quality assessment is its focus.

The primary purposes of planning are:

to promote continuous improvement of the school district as a learning organization;

to foster the continuous improvement of student performance in alignment with the highest local, regional, national, and international measures of excellence.

Comprehensive Strategic Planning:

- encourages the continuous improvement of leadership through a proactive leadership approach across the district from administrators, instructional leaders, teachers, the professional support staff and students;

- provides a systematic approach for the identification and analysis of key internal and external influences on the school district;

- requires a critical analysis of the key trends, problem areas, opportunities, strengths, and areas for improvement;

- provides a vehicle for the identification of the "vital few" priorities among the "useful many" intended to improve performance in targeted areas;

- provides vehicles and criteria for the approval and evaluation of recommended priorities based upon their need and feasibility;

- provides a model, including definitions and scoring guidelines, for assessing school system performance using targets for student performance, internal support (e.g. professional and curriculum development, instruction, guidance, innovation, supervision), and external support (e.g. parental participation, community involvement, budget support);

provides a means for communicating results and receiving feedback, including data to demonstrate progress (trend data), achievement (performance levels), and breadth of implementation;

provides a means to evaluate and improve the planning process.

Planning Principles: The following principles guide the Plainville planning process:

--high quality

--student focus

--continuous improvement

--broad participation

--high integrity

Planning Process: The five step planning process is cyclical and responsive to the district's vision, mission, goals and beliefs set forth in Board of Education Policy 6010 (see attached).

--Conduct needs assessment and analysis

--Plan priorities to meet needs

--Implement priorities

--Assess and analyze results

--Communicate results

Needs Assessment and Analysis

The School Leadership Councils, administration, and instructional leaders are responsible for conducting an annual needs assessment of the status of the school system and sub-systems, e.g., school learning plans, grade level, classroom, and groups of students. After analyzing the needs and determining where there are gaps between "what is" and "what should be", the planning teams and staff define the problems and determine where improvement is needed.

Priorities

The School Learning Plan Teams are responsible for determining the most important priorities (vital few) for improvement of the school and school programs based upon need and feasibility. Their findings are reported annually to the Board. The Superintendent is responsible for recommending annual district priorities to the Board of Education. The Superintendent and administrators are responsible for linking priorities to the budget. All priorities include indicators of success and performance targets where appropriate, to help in determining the degree of accomplishment. An annual report is made to the Board regarding progress in achieving the priorities.

Implementing Priorities

The school and district staff and administration are responsible for developing and implementing action plans to achieve the priorities in accord with the indicators of success and performance targets where appropriate, and with the resources available.

Assessment and Communication

Assessment is central to the planning model and focuses on both student and institutional performance. The approach to assessment includes indicators and focuses on Student Performance and dimensions called "Internal Support" and "External Support." These are included with the understanding that they support, and are subordinate to, that central focus on student performance. The following list identifies key "indicators of balanced performance" in each category.

Indicators:

Student performance:

1. Performance assessment and competency

2. Standardized testing proficiency via testing and goals, consistent with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

3. Longitudinal progress of student performance from K through 12

4. Students as active participants in the learning process

5. College enrollment and college success*

6. Meaningful extra-curricular activity*

Internal support:

7. Instruction linked to use of student assessment data

8. Supervision linked to use of student assessment data

9. Professional development linked to student learning standards

10. Environment for change and innovation

11. Building shared vision and goals

12. Curriculum development and articulation linked to achievement

13. Budget development aligned with learning improvement

14. Support for academic, social, and emotional needs of each child*

External Support:

15. Parental partnership

16. Budget support

School and district administrators and instructional leaders are responsible for designing assessments, analyzing results and communicating to the Board and public through the Superintendent.

* It is suggested that indicators be used only for a district-wide assessment and not for one targeted to a particular curricular area.

Assessment Criteria

Assessment criteria are related to the indicators (measurable characteristics to track and improve performance), indicators represent a continuum of expectations described by five levels of performance related to school improvement from three perspectives.

The five levels of performance can be described as follows:

1. no process in place

2. beginning of a process

3. sound process in place

4. comprehensive process in place

5. comprehensive process in place with monitoring and feedback

The five levels of performance operate through these perspectives: approach, implementation and results.

1. Approach describes an ideal plan for improvement.

2. Implementation describes how the approach is carried out.

3. Results describe outcomes of that implementation.

In addition, the district will provide assessments and measure competencies consistent with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 in order to assess the Districts and to all of its schools' adequate yearly progress toward meeting statewide goals.

Benchmarking Process: Benchmarking is collecting and using information about another organization's practices and performance. Efforts will be made to identify "best practices," understand their critical success factors and how they produced high quality results, and assess the results produced against external measures representing "world-class" standards.