The Jefferson City Board of Education learned more about the status of the district's strategic planning efforts at a work session Monday.
Raina Knox, president of the Excellence in Missouri Foundation, shared what her organization has accomplished in the last year and a half.
Although the process is far from finished, Knox said district leaders are focusing on five "approved strategies" for the 2015-16 school year. They include building effective relationships, ensuring high-quality staff, ensuring high-quality instruction, closing the achievement gap and creating data-drive accountability systems.
If they seem familiar, that is because they were already outlined in a document the board approved in 2013. "There was a strategic plan that was in place ... we honored and brought that forward," Knox said.
Each of the five have more strategies - 10 in all - listed underneath them. Knox said the district plans to start working on six of the 10 soon.
Knox said the plan was "very carefully vetted" by the staffers who worked on it. She noted it also was drafted with "a tremendous amount of feedback" from students, employees and the community.
Part of the process included analysis of the district's strengths and weaknesses.
Knox suggested many educators thought one strength is Jefferson City's "student-driven culture," meaning educators think serving students and improving achievement are important. The district is already doing that, she said, through a host of initiatives, ranging from establishing academies to implementing Common Core.
Focus groups showed the district has three main problems, including:
• A lack of discipline and student accountability.
• A negative public perception of the district and a lack of trust in its leadership.
• The need for more and better facilities.
Knox said knowing the district's strengths and weaknesses will allow "us to focus our strategic planning efforts."
"We know approximately how many resource hours they will cost the organization," she said, adding she believes staff will have to work 12,000 hours to get the tasks accomplished.
"The plan is designed to be sustainable," she added.
She noted the document is designed so leaders can "move back and forth flawlessly" between the strategic and tactical sides of the plan.
Board member Alan Mudd said he feels it is critical for the staff to have ownership in the process, because the district has already asked teachers to do a lot of committee work.
"The number of hours you quote is impressive - and by that I mean overwhelming - if you add to a schedule that's already oppressive to start with," Mudd said, adding the board is already concerned about faculty morale.
"If this is going to be successful, they need to feel like it's important, worthwhile, attainable and sustainable.
"The goals you quoted sound great, but for me, at least, it would be nice to have a little more meat on the bones. For example, what are they going to do to improve communication?"
Knox assured Mudd the plan already involves quite a lot of detail. She encouraged Mudd that the board should stay "strategic" in its decision-making and allow the faculty teams to be "tactical." She said the information is flowing back and forth from the teams to the administrators to the school board.
Knox, who interviewed dozens of people as part of the focus group project, said faculty are enthusiastic about this. Superintendent Brian Mitchell noted faculty who participated in the focus groups were then asked if they wanted to participate in the strategic planning process. Several faculty teams, each with 13 to 15 people, worked on the strategies for about 10 weeks, he said.
Although Knox was initially concerned staff would be too busy to help, she found many who cared deeply.
She heard: "Yeah, we're really busy, but we want to do this. We really care about this."
Knox reported the team members were engaged and came prepared for every meeting.
"I was here every other week, to make sure I was here to help, but not so much to run the cost up," she said.
Board member Ken Theroff said he would like to see the plan have a dashboard so people can easily see how the district is doing.
Incoming Superintendent Larry Linthacum was in the room, taking in the conversation. At the end of the meeting, one of the board members asked him for his early impressions.
Linthacum noted five strategic goals and 17 listed objectives is a hefty load, and he suggested it's wise to narrow the focus to determine the most important.
"It's a good start. I want to try and understand" the work that's been done, he said.
But he also said teachers often have full plates and he's interested in the process of inspiring people to do their best.
"How do you inspire?" he asked rhetorically.
He also said it doesn't take a strategy or goal to build relationships.
"You just treat people the way they want to be treated," he said.