What is in a Strategic Plan?

School Districts in our county produce strategic plans as a way to guide policies at all levels—instructing individual students, running good schools, supporting district-wide initiatives. Tacoma Public Schools has a District Improvement Plan, an exercise required under state and federal law, but does not have a strategic plan. Does it need one? A group that has paid attention to Tacoma Schools policy has repeatedly suggested to the District that a strategic plan is needed.

If you are interested in a general discussion of strategic planning, here is one from NAESP geared at elementary and middle schools.

The recent report to the District, Addressing the Achievement Gap for African American Students, Sept. 10, 2009, emphasized that the District needs a strategic plan.

A reading of strategic plans of neighboring school districts reveals some common elements. Of these examples, Highline comes the closest to having what we commonly call a strategic plan.

· The Seattle Public Schools strategic plan (good on values, not much on actual activities—many promises to develop parts of the plan)

· The University Place Plan (sorry, not much detail there)

· The Highline Strategic Plan (looks like a real plan)

· The Puyallup Plan (in between the others)

· Bellingham keeps online their Strategic Plan and a set of School Strategic Plans

Look through these. To be effective, strategic plans need to include:

· A clear statement of values, which can be operationalized as priorities (more of A, less of B), that constitute the District’s mission.

· Action goals that represent direct enactment of elements of the mission.

· Measurable outcomes that define completion of the action items.

· Resources allocated according to the cost of achieving elements of the mission.

· Milestones that enable responsible officials and the public to track progress toward goals and mission.

· Clear assignment of responsibility for various action items.

Here is a critical question: Does strategic planning actually work? According to this review of literature from 1995, the link between planning and student achievement is usually weak. But that does not mean it “doesn’t work.” Planning, like any other activity, can be done badly. If it is done well, it will, at least, improve District achievement in the basics. Its main contribution should be to clarify expectations, to define the most valuable activities, and to devote resources to the most valuable activities. One other thing a strategic plan does is give people at all levels of the organization a sense of where resources go, and why. Lacking such a plan, very different perceptions develop about where money is actually spent.

How can Tacoma Public Schools produce a strategic plan?

1. The impetus for any plan has to be the Board. Board members need to provide clear direction to administrators that they need certain elements in a plan. Perhaps they could begin with a list like the one above.

2. The plan needs to have milestones that can be easily monitored by the Board, data-driven, and quality checked with feedback from teachers, parents, and community members.

3. The plan needs to have clear markers for when we are on course and off course, so the Board will know when changes are necessary to achieve goals.

We urge the Board to direct its administrators to build these expectations into existing planning efforts. The District Improvement Plan offers insufficient direction for moving forward. Waiting for school plans is not the answer.

At the second meeting of the Tacoma Schools Academic Success for All Students advisory group, someone asked if any schools integrated data on their discipline system into their strategic plan. Please look at Highline’s attempt to do this, on page 23 of their Overview of the Strategic Plan. (Note: this is an overview, and does not describe the measurement issues in detail. Your scribe is contacting District officials to obtain the documents about details.)