Staff and officials at Charlottesville City Schools recently received the first feedback from the School Board on a draft of the division’s next strategic plan.
The division is in the process of finalizing the five-year plan, which focuses on academics, supportive school environments and organizational supports.
Board members discussed the draft Wednesday after parents, students, teachers and other stakeholders gave their feedback at several community meetings held over a period of months.
School divisions are required to have a strategic plan, and many use the document as a guide for decisions on operations, budgets and other functions.
Jeff Faust, director of technology, and Beth Cheuk, city schools spokeswoman, presented the draft and took feedback from board members.
“I think it was gratifying that the School Board seemed in sync with the feedback that we’ve heard from the community,” Cheuk said. “And I think the School Board, like other people who are looking at the document, looked at it very carefully and gave very helpful feedback, which makes the plan a better plan in the long run.”
Board members hashed out concerns with wording in the draft and whether the plan is targeting the right areas, ideas and principles.
Division staffers will take that feedback as they work on a new draft of the plan to be presented to the board at a future meeting.
“We spent a lot of time speaking about issues of equity, and I would say that those issues of making sure that all of our students succeed really came out again, not just last night, but in lots of meetings with parents, students, teachers, staff and people in the community,” Cheuk said Thursday.
The section on academic excellence focuses on equitable, student-centered leaning and on developing well-rounded citizens.
“The board is really looking at this plan as being really transformational, in that we are looking beyond the baseline, we are looking at — I think the term that we used was ‘moonshot’-type of recommendations for our kids. And we want to look at each of our kids and see how we can make the school system and what we teach meaningful to them,” said Juandiego Wade, board chairman.
Part of framing the context of the strategic plan is watching standards and influences at the state and national level.
In particular, the city schools are keeping an eye on the state’s Profile of a Virginia Graduate, which focuses on the knowledge and skills high school students need for life after graduation.
The safe and supportive schools component of the revised plan focuses on creating spaces that foster social, emotional and physical wellness. The organizational supports component targets the “systems and processes” that will allow “students, staff and schools to thrive,” according to the draft of the plan.
Faust said that among the most notable parts of the draft plan is how the division will try to make the current structures and systems already in place more accessible to all students.
“What stands out to me is putting forward the idea that we want all learners to not only have the opportunity but have the support and have the staff believe in the fact that everybody can achieve at a high level,” he said. “And that’s what we want this plan to put forward and that’s what we want this plan to support.”
The School Board is set to approve the 2017-23 strategic plan in July, Cheuk said, but will have other chances to hash out details before then.
Cheuk, Faust and division staff will continue working with parents, teachers and other focus groups as they fine-tune the details of the plan. They have scheduled meetings with the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce and the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education.
“We have a group of professors over at the Curry School that we’re going to bounce things off of and have them provide any input that they might see either as, ‘Oh, this is a great way to put this,’ or what things that they see as being possible red flags,” Faust said.
A community-wide forum seeking more input on the plan is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. May 11 at Charlottesville High School.
The School Board has a retreat scheduled for May 19. Faust said he hopes that the “refinement process” of the plan will continue during the retreat.
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