By Mike Norman
mnorman@star-telegram.com
Arlington school trustees are proud of their new 2012-15 strategic plan, and they should be.
They spent about a year in meetings, discussions with students and parents and sessions with other public officials and business leaders, all aimed at getting a big-picture view of what they want their district to be. Then they took that ideal picture apart, studying the many individual pieces that would be its essential elements.
They wrote everything down and organized it into the three-year strategic plan, grouping goals according to whether they focus on students ("inspired learners"), educators ("effective leadership") or everybody else who lives in the district ("engaged community").
That's all good. Still, it's mostly just words on paper or digital representations of words in computer memory.
It's crucial to have a plan, because if you don't know where you're going, only serendipity or dumb luck will guide you to a good place. But writing a plan is only the beginning.
Arlington district leaders say they're fully aware that the real work of turning the plan into positive outcomes for students and everyone else involved is still ahead. Interim Superintendent Marcelo Cavazos says that even now as they embark on the three-year plan, it will take most of the first year just to come up with the right ways to measure progress toward the stated goals.
Look at it another way and you might see that real, even if intangible, benefits have already arrived. They started the moment trustees began to talk about developing a strategic plan.
Anyone who's ever seen a school board meeting or followed a series of them knows that it takes an agonizingly long time to get through what ultimately is minutiae when compared with the real goal of producing graduates who have the academic background and mental skills they'll need for life after high school. Trustees have to sign off on new contracts, personnel matters, facility issues, policy changes and seemingly thousands of administrative matters that fill hours of their time every meeting.
When those trustees find or make time to focus on the big picture, to exercise their policymaking responsibilities for long-term positive change, that's a good thing.
When they step outside the boardroom and engage business leaders, other government figures, their constituents, parents and even students in those discussions, that's even better. Community interest, even excitement, about what's happening in public schools can't help but make those schools stronger.
It's good, even if it's not the end being sought.
Strategic plans for public schools certainly are not new. They caught on, even had some people worried that they had become a fad, back in the 1980s.
Now there are thousands of school district strategic plans on the Internet, websites from consultants who want to sell their skills to help school districts and private schools develop strategic plans, even sites that promise to guide school leaders in developing strategic plans online.
Arlington's plan has many elements similar to those in other school districts, but it was developed locally with a from-the-ground-up focus on local needs. From academic achievement to student involvement in extracurricular and co-curricular activities, through facility and financial needs, campus safety, teacher effectiveness, compensation, workforce partnerships and myriad other topics, it's all in the plan.
Now comes the execution of that plan.
Once that gets started, Trustees Aaron Reich, Tony Pompa and Bowie Hogg have been tapped to begin working on a follow-on, five-year strategic plan. The drive to make Arlington schools better has no end in sight.
Mike Norman is editorial director of the Star-Telegram / Arlington and Northeast Tarrant County. 817-390-7830 Twitter: @mnorman9
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