On Board Online • June 8, 2009

Case study

The Horseheads school district in Chemung County has embarked on an ambitious, 18-month process to create a 10-year strategic plan. The effort involves a “core team” of more than 50 people and six task forces.

“Plans do not create themselves; people create plans,” Superintendent Ralph Marino Jr. said. “Our school community is engaged in a very important conversation about the future of our school district, and everyone is working very hard,” he said.

Horseheads received more than 900 responses to a community engagement survey, which measures community perceptions of a school district and levels of satisfaction. Marino called that an “outstanding” level of response for the 4,400-student district, whose faculty includes Spanish teacher Vickie Mike, 2009 New York State Teacher of the Year.

School board President Brian Lynch said he has been “overwhelmed” by the level of participation and support that the community has demonstrated. 

Aggressive outreach

Horseheads is taking an unusually open approach to its strategic planning process, according to facilitators Penny Ciaburri and Diane Reed, who are affiliated with NYSSBA’s consulting department, AdvisorySolutions. “Many districts are afraid of sharing work in progress; they keep potential decisions under wraps until the end,” Ciaburri said.

“If we want energetic support for our plans, it should be the opposite tactic – get the content out continually and invite the conversation,” Reed said. “Horseheads, to its credit, is doing just that.”

The district regularly posts information on progress and possible recommendations of the various teams on its website, covers the planning process in its district newsletter and invites the media to cover strategic planning events.

The outreach and information-sharing has helped people feel confidence in the process, according to parent Judy Rowe, a member of the core team. “The fact that the school district is willing to invest time to evaluate itself and plan ahead to meet future needs is impressive,” she said. “The planning process, using the teacher-student-administration-community stakeholder approach, provides diverse perspectives that will reap better ideas, collaboration and ownership.”

Listening to all stakeholders and using their ideas to shape the strategic plan is essential for a successful strategic planning process, said Michael Buck, vice president of the school board. “Planning must be inclusive of all stakeholders from students and families, to staff and administrators and most importantly the community whose hard-earned tax dollars enable the district to provide the opportunities expected in public education,” he said. “Strategic planning must incorporate the vision, values and needs of the community.”  

Decisions based on data

Key topics of discussion in Horseheads include value in education, responsibility, financial planning, supporting student achievement and developing strategies to support students in the 21st century.

In addition to examining student achievement database, the district has gained information from a demographics study and building-use reports.

Other data was gathered from a District Performance Scan, an internal survey covering 12 areas of district operations. Summaries of voluminous reports appear on the district’s website.

One of the highlights of the Horseheads’ process was All Task Force Night, held April 7. All six Task Forces – Character Education and Wellness, Community Relations/ Partnerships, Facilities/Building Use, Financial Planning, Professional Develop-ment/District Culture and Student Achievement – met. The core team and task forces interact on a regular basis. Their reports are shared with each other and made available to the Horseheads community.

During a recent strategy session, the core team identified new ways of reaching out to the community and will make this the area of focus over the summer months.

The Horseheads Strategic Plan will be presented to the community on Dec. 3, 2009.  “People have marked it on their calendars,” said district administrator Judy Christiansen, who is internal coordinator of the strategic planning project. “It will be an important night for the community.”

“The most important component is the input of the community,” said Lynch, the board president. “We are all in this together as far as providing the best environment and atmosphere for a top-notch school system.”

“Horseheads is doing everything right,” said Ciaburri, the AdvisorySolu-tions consultant. “Some organizations try to do strategic planning over a couple of days. Horseheads is devoting a year-and-a-half to this process to ensure that it examines all the relevant data, gets feedback from all the stakeholders and does all of this in a completely transparent way. On a scale of one to 10, they are off the scale.”

For more information on strategic planning, participate in a free NYSSBA webinar led by Ciaburri and Reed from 7 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 11. To register or for more information on NYSSBA AdvisorySolutions' school district consultant services, contact Joseph Natale, director of AdvisorySolutions, at (518) 783-3787 or (800) 342-3360, or via e-mail at joseph.natale@nyssba.org.