As the school year hastens to its May 25 end, the district took its first steps toward updating its strategic plan, a document that lists specific goals and outcomes, how those will be achieved and the deadlines for each.
Though discussions about updating the plan were held at the beginning of the school year, the district has recently issued a survey, inviting community members to share what they think the schools should focus on.
“This is our initial foray into getting as much information as possible,” said Schools Superintendent Bill Burr.
“Then we can start paring things down. But right now, we are wide open to ideas.”
Burr said the process will allow them to collect as many ideas as possible on what the community would like to see in the strategic plan, whether it’s moving the elementary school into the middle school building, curriculum reviews, staffing, technology or anything else.
“This is what we need to begin filtering down because, obviously, we can’t do everything,” he said.
The school district has been spending down its savings and using one-time federal pandemic aid to cover its budget the past few years.
The money-saving suggestion of consolidating the elementary school into the middle school building came up at a March 6 budget workshop between the school board and borough assembly. It was just an idea floated at the meeting, not a specific proposal.
Originally, the school board began talking about the need to update the strategic plan at its Sept. 19 meeting after an accreditation assessment called the current plan, which expires this year, too vague. The last time the strategic plan was updated was in 2018. Plans typically cover a five-year span.
The district wants input from anybody in Wrangell, not just parents or educators. Burr said it can be students, staff, community members and anybody who has the link to the survey. He refers to it as the “educational community,” or all those who are concerned with education.
Items on the current strategic plan can also be carried over to the new plan, board president David Wilson said at the Sept. 19 meeting.
The current strategic plan can be found at wpsd.us on the bottom of the homepage. To provide input for the new strategic plan, complete the survey at surveymonkey.com/r/strategicplanning2023.
“We’ve reached out to everybody possible,” Burr said. “If you have the link, send it to anybody you want.”
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