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Health & Fitness

Strategic Planning Update

At last Monday night's Board of Education Business Meeting Dr. Angela Pringle presented an update on DeKalb County School District's strategic planning process.

Required action #11 from last December's SACS report states, "Re-establish the district’s strategic planning team for the purpose of effectively implementing the DeKalb County School System Strategic Plan to guide the direction of the district."

I am glad the district is looking at the long-term, big picture. Superintendent Thurmond has stated that hasn't been done for several years. 

According to Dr. Pringle the Strategic Planning Committee is ahead of schedule and will present the strategic plan to the BOE in December. The SMS Project Plan posted on the DCSD website indicates the BOE is scheduled to vote on the strategic plan in January of next year (Task Code 29), in approximately two months. 

Stakeholder engagement sessions and an online survey are not scheduled to take place until February of next year, after the strategic plan has been approved by the BOE. (Task Code 31)

Nowhere in the SMS Project Plan is there an opportunity to revise the strategic plan based on community input after the BOE votes on it.

How can stakeholders have input into the development of the strategic plan? According to Monday night's progress report, "Community is engaged through conversation and surveys" is currently in progress. How is this being done? Where can I get a survey? It isn't linked on the web site

The progress report also has the measure “Community Engagement Report Delivered” marked as complete, but the report is not found on the web site.  Who was the report delivered to and can it be linked for stakeholders to see?

It has been announced at several previous meetings that interested stakeholders can ask to be part of the process, but not everyone who asked to be involved was included. At the September 25th BOE Called Meeting, Rachel Zeigler invited me to be part of the strategic planning committee, but even with her endorsement I was not allowed to be part of the committee. 

It appears to me the DeKalb County School District did not learn anything from the failed redistricting attempt of 2010-11. According to the Project Plan, the school district is going to have a strategic plan in place and then get public feedback. This is surprising since the same people are in senior administrative roles as in 2010-11. You might think the community push-back and negative news stories would have been a lesson in how not to do redistricting, but the DCSD administrators either didn’t learn or don’t care.

How did I get from strategic planning to redistricting? 

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I am assuming redistricting is part of the strategic plan based on the projected enrollments presented by the planning department last year in the proposed organizations. Tucker High is predicted to need more than 600 additional seats in 2018. 

I want to ask everyone to please be open minded about whatever the plan is that is put forth in December. I want everybody to start thinking about a different looking school district in the future. I implore people not to reject the strategic plan out-of-hand just because it doesn't keep the status quo. The time for a modern school district is now. The time for change is now. We need to drop our longing for "the good old days." 

DeKalb County parents need to stop clinging to traditional feeder zones and start thinking about how we can work with the school district to move into the future even if our input isn't asked for.

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