River Forest School District 90 officials hope by April to have in place a new five-year strategic plan they hope will be a simpler document with greater flexibility than the current plan.
To help with the development of that plan, district officials have invited the participation of about 35 stakeholders, including parents, current and former students, staff and community members. The group meets for about six hours once a month to wade through the district’s issues and priorities in order to identify its opportunities.
“They try to get a cross section of all the stakeholders but have a cohesive group committed to four dates to really dig in and do the work to come up with a viable plan,” said District 90 Board member Anne Gottlieb, one of the stakeholders on the team.
The process is facilitated by Perry Soldwedel of the Lombard, Ill.-based Consortium for Educational Change.
Though the strategic plan should include the interests and needs of more than 35 people, Gottlieb, who is completing her second year on the Board, said the team is “not working in a vacuum.”
“I think there is an expectation that the people in the room can get input from the larger community and bring it back,” she said.
As a Board member, Gottlieb said she hopes the finished plan will be a hardworking, living document and not just a checklist.
“I know a lot of times these planning documents just end up being done and are valuable for a time — three months, six months — and then sit up on a shelf. I’m really hoping it can set a course and set a direction for our priorities,” she said.
For instance, District 90 over the past several years has moved toward sustainability with the recent installation of solar panels and some waste initiatives at the school level.
“I think that’s an important value. I don’t think it’s really never been written into a plan,” she said. “If this is something that’s really community, we should say this is want we want our children to know.”
Both Gottlieb and Superintendent Dr. Edward J. Condon said the one characteristic that will separate the new five-year plan from the previous one is length. The new plan, expected to be about two pages in length, will include the district’s mission, vision, values and goals, leaving objectives and tactics to be developed on an on-going basis.
“I feel like the Board is going to be open to that. I think it can still be comprehensive without being so large and therefore unmanageable,” Gottlieb said.
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Condon said an overly detailed plan can tie the hands of administrators and teachers when individual objectives and tactics are rendered irrelevant because of changes in legislation, technology or instructional priorities.
“While that is a very thorough approach to strategic planning, one of the challenges is over the scope of a plan, the landscape can change dramatically,” he said. “All of those things can change the way a school district does business over a period of five years.”
Though the district’s students scatter to a number of high schools, Condon said officials were especially sensitive to that fact that the vast majority will enter Oak Park and River Forest High School. Therefore, he said, it’s important to ensure the new strategic plan aligns somewhat with the high school’s recently implemented five-year plan.
“District 90 feels we have a shared responsibility with many stakeholder groups to meet the needs of students in our community,” he said.