District 63 to Post One-Year Strategic Plan

Residents of will soon have a chance to see what’s on tap for the coming year. 

The school board agreed Tuesday that every year it will publish a one-year strategic plan that outlines goals and plans for the district.

Internally the board will work from a five-year strategic plan that will be available for public perusal in the District 63 office.

Board members including Secretary Beth Lopez and President Mike Webster said that posting a five-year plan on the district website might cause undue confusion among the public.

“The reality is we could have some issue, some change in staffing, change in demographic, change in anything really that could change our goals every year,” Lopez said.

The five-year plan is meant as a guideline for things the board should think about in upcoming years, she said.

The one-year document posted online, on the other hand, will delineate the district’s concrete goals for the current school year.

Board Vice President Rich Brandeis said the district should make it clear to its residents that it has a longer term plan.

“I realize the need for balancing the amount of information versus overload, but it would be nice for people to know that the whole purpose of the plan is to go beyond year by year,” he said.

Webster said he was concerned about publishing a long-term plan that specified goals the board had yet to formally approve.

“I don’t want it out there that we’re going to do this in year three when the Finance Committee hasn’t looked at it to see if it’s even feasible,” he said.

Brandeis said it would be good to give the community an opportunity to examine the plan and offer its input.

Although it could be a good tool for starting a conversation with the community, Lopez said she didn’t want people to think the five-year plan was set in stone.

“It truly is a fluid document,” she said.

Superintendent Kerry Foderaro said he would welcome residents to the district office to read and discuss the five-year plan while offering them the disclaimer that nothing beyond year one has been approved.

“We’re not trying to hide anything, we just don’t want to confuse them,” he said.

The two plans were developed during the past year as the district .

District 63 worked with consulting firm School Exec Connect to gather input from teachers, alumni and community members, and formulate the new process.