Newtown Schools

Strategic Plan Implemented

By Eliza Hallabeck

The Newtown Public School’s five-part strategic plan came together over the course of last year. In the past month, it has been implemented throughout the district, and this week Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson said she is excited about the process.

The schools’ newly implemented strategic plan ties together multiple efforts across the district toward one goal, Dr Robinson said. From the ongoing relationship between Newtown High School and its sister school, Liaocheng Middle School No. 3 in the Shandong Province of China, to the Connecticut Technology Innovation Academy class taught by Kristin Violette at the high school, Dr Robinson said the efforts share a focus on teaching 21st Century skills.

It began when a group of 30 residents came together to create a goal, a statement to guide the five planned action teams to “inspire each student to excel in attaining and applying knowledge, skills and attributes that lead to personal success while becoming a contributing member of a dynamic global community.” That mission statement was presented to the Board of Education in a June 2, 2009, meeting.

Signs with the mission statement have been prepared and will hang in each classroom as a reminder for all, and larger copies of the signs will be framed for display in school lobbies, according to Dr Robinson.

Last year on October 2, 3, and 4 the first group of 30 residents met for three days of meetings to map out the overall strategic plan for the school. From those meetings the draft of the plan included beliefs, mission statements, objectives, strategies and parameters to help the district grow.

At a Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, June 2, the school board heard from members of the individual Strategic Plan Committees. The five plan committees were the Student Achievement Committee, the Character Development Committee, the Student Success Plan Committee, the Communication Plan Committee, and the Capital Improvement Plan Committee.

“One thing that is really important for us,” said Dr Robinson, “is it gives us a road map for how we can be better. We are a good school system and we want to be a great school system. The second thing that is important is it causes us to focus, so as we are going into building a budget for next year in these economic times we have to decide what our focus is, and in this case it is the strategic plan. Those things that don’t get us to our goals when we have to start making budget cuts, those will have to be the things we will have to be willing to give up.”

Each principal across the district is working on a paper called Mutual Commitments and Expectations, which takes the goals of the strategic plan action teams and applies them to their schools.

By Tuesday, Newtown Middle School Principal Diane Sherlock was the first principal in the school district to meet with Dr Robinson regarding her school’s Mutual Commitments and Expectations sheet. One specific example on the sheet was ensuring student excellence, and in order to achieve this, specific objectives were added for the middle school to monitor, like the use of the national Response To Intervention model, called Scientific Research-Based Interventions model in the state.

“They are taking a look at their data, and any student who is not where they should be in the RTI process, they are putting in an intervention,” said Dr Robinson. Monitoring those same students on a regular interval is also part of the program. The full spectrum of the students will be monitored. “So as much as we are working with the kids who are struggling, we have to make sure we are also programming proper instruction for the students who are very capable of doing much more.”

The rigor of education will be monitored in two ways: the instructional strategies used for a subject and content. Assistant Superintendent of Schools Linda Gejda is overseeing the process of making sure the appropriate rigor is within the content and instructional strategies within the classroom. Dr Robinson said the goal is to do away with classes where students feel they can disengage.

While Dr Robinson said a principal’s job is already terribly complex, the strategic plan is articulating what principals do on a regular basis.

“Some of the academic things are going to take awhile to actually see the results,” said Dr Robinson, “but the teachers are all talking about the mission statement, the elements of the strategic plan and once we get everyone in the district talking the same language, working the same way, with the same focus, that is when we will really see it.”

While it normally takes three years to make a total change with a strategic plan, Dr Robinson said the school district is looking at ways to fast track the process.

The Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) portion of the strategic plan, as Dr Robinson said, will be the one least visible in the district.

“That action team did a phenomenal job coming up with a process,” Dr Robinson said. The CIP process will begin once teacher contract negotiations come to an end in the district, she said, and continued, “I’m going to start that CIP process with a committee that will follow what that strategic plan committee developed.”

 This time next year when the CIP will be presented for the school district, she said, it will look different from what it has been in the past.

“Parents are not going to walk into a school and see the results of that CIP committee until down the road when they recognize our buildings are in good shape and things are happening consistently,” she said.

While the school district’s strategic plan is still developing as it is being implemented, Dr Robinson said she will be presenting the process to the school board regularly. By next summer she said the progress of the plan will be assessed.

“I’m excited about the whole thing,” said Dr Robinson. “I love change, and I enjoy participating in something as exciting as this, which is really giving a whole new direction to the district.”

She noted that the direction of the newly implemented strategic plan is not really new in the district. The plan will take something, like the school district’s focus on “all students can and will learn well,” and will make something already great better, said Dr Robinson.

“All we are doing in terms of change is using that as a base and building on,” she said. “It is not as big a change as so many places, and it will not be as apparent. When you are a high achieving school district, to get those last remaining increments are really hard.”