e e e hi good evening we're g to get started just want to welcome everyone for coming to our third and final strategic planning session um it's great to see everyone whether you've come to all three or just one or two meeting sessions we really appreciate um the community and the administration coming out to support this initiative um we have our njsba Representatives here today maryan Freeman um who's been with us for all three sessions um so thank you so much and I'm now going to turn it over to superintendent Mark Daniels thank you Nicole so uh I'll will Echo Nicole sentiments good evening everyone um this is the third session I do appreciate everyone kind of honoring that commitment there's plenty of other things you could be doing on a spring evening at 6 PM so uh definitely don't take that for granted the feedback thus far has been very helpful uh just to refresh our Collective memories uh your input is really shaping the direction of the schol school district for what we anticipate to be the next 3 to five years so uh we've gone through the process of kind of identifying strengths and challenges the last meeting we we kind of focused on Vision in terms of identifying those things in addition to the programs we currently have in the district you know uh if we were to fast forward five years what are some aspects that we would like to see that would reflect successful schools uh tonight we'll engage in kind of recapping some of that and then transitioning into um actually I should I should uh point out that we did identify five goal areas and you're seated at those uh areas currently tonight we're looking to shape some goals and some actions to support those goals coming into fruition so with that said I'm going to turn things over it's good this is the last time I'm talking tonight so I'm going to turn things over to Maryann Freedman from New Jersey school boards thank you thank you welcome everybody it's so good to see you all again tonight we appreciate you coming out as uh Mr Daniel said it's a kind of crummy night but there's obviously things you could be doing so thank you for being here my name is Maryann Friedman I'm a field service representative with New Jersey school boards we're a nonprofit group that works with Boards of Education to help provide training and other services and Tim Tian is here everybody turn wave to Tim over by the computers and um Tim is joining me tonight and so we're very glad that you're here so G to talk a little bit about whoops I turn it okay um going to talk a little bit about just recap what strategic planning does for a district it helps to create a districtwide vision and mission for the district and this is being done by you it's being done formulated by all of you so you are going to help to plan for the next three to five years it does provide a road map for the board and for the administration and so we're grateful that you're here the advantages of strategic planning and thank you to our translators who have translated our our PowerPoint so that everybody can follow along the advantages of strategic planning are it helps the Board to become more proactive because boards have had to become more reactive to the things that come out of Trenton from the Department of Education and it also allows them to be more creative and flexible because you're pre providing some of that creativity and then they have the ability to be flexible with the information it also provides for a Comm a form of community participation that you don't typically see in a School District school districts it's important to know school districts do not have to develop a strategic plan they do not have to invite folks in from their Community their parents community staff members students administrators board members to come in to help to formulate this but this board decided that they wanted your input so they have invited you in to do that and typically if you're a parent in the school district with kids in the school district you come in for back to school night Mar um possibly parent teach conferences generally and to different events but tonight and if you're a Community member you may come in for events but tonight and the other two nights everybody's voice is equal so nobody's voice is more important nobody's voice is less important than anybody else's and so this will also provide for a cycle of planning an ongoing cycle of planning over the next several years so this is our Cascade effect of strategic planning the goal areas have been ident our last meeting they were student centered learning Staffing Community engagement facilities and finance and then culture and climate and so they will be at the top of everything and they will inform what goes on in the district over the next three to five years they'll inform the district and the board goals which are generally set by the board and the superintendent over the summer they'll also inform the building goals and Department goals and administrators goals student growth objectives and staff Prof development plans and that ultimately flows into student achievement which will improve for all students in all grade levels and we see that happen all the time with strategic planning student achievement really does rise so this is our our pyramid effect and um the only thing that's missing is on the side there should be commitment and that's the commitment of the Board of Education to not only have invited you in but to listen to what you have to say so at the first meeting we had had um Mr Daniels give the state of the schools report and then you in your small groups you identified areas of strength and areas of challenge for the district we asked you if you remember to come up with a top 10 list thank David Letterman then at our last meeting we had you break up into groups again and those were all random tonight's really strategic planning gone wild because you get to sit wherever you want to with whomever you want to sit with okay but last time we had to think about vision and initiatives you were away from the district for about five years you come back you stop at Wawa to get gas you go in to get coffee and you see Time Magazine and it says schools that succeed and on the cover are pictures of East Windsor Township School District so we asked you to think about in addition to all of the great programs that were already happening in the school now what would you expect to see happening in three to five years that would put you on the cover of Time Magazine so we talked about those things and then at the end of that we talked about common themes from the initiatives and we identified goal areas so tonight what we're going to do is ask you to think about those goal areas and take a look at the stapled packets that are at your tables you also have an agenda at the table let me hold up the agenda the agenda has your brainstorming sheet on the back so if you've been here before you remember that the back of the agenda has your brainstorming sheet and then this packet which is stapled is going to give you the outcome and the common themes for meeting one and meeting two and we want you to really take a look at those outcomes and um see what it is you would like to see happening in The District in the next three to five years under those five goal areas if you want to provide input at the table you're sitting at and then move to another table you can do that as well but on the back of your sheet you do have a brainstorming section and you can take a look at those challenges and those initiatives from last time don't just look at what your group did if your group was number one or two look at all of the other groups and what they came up with also and look at those common themes and then see what it is you would like to see happening in five years from now and then you are determining what it is you want to see happen not how it's going to happen but what it is going what you want to see happen Okay and then the administrative team along with the superintendent will develop action plans which I'll talk about in a few minutes so I just want to go back to your mission statement oh this is tough to read through a safe inclusive learning experience that's grounded in best practices student in the East winter Regional School District will develop and strengthen academic social and emotional skills needed in order to be successful productive citizens we serve every CH every serving every child every day we strive to increase achievement by challenging and supporting each each student to reach his or her Highest Potential address address the needs of the whole Child by ensuring students feel healthy safe engaged supported and challenged with opportunities for social emotional learning and growth and prepare all students with the skills and and awareness necessary to actively contribute as productive local and Global Citizens and provide professional staff with the knowledge skills and resources necessary for highly effective delivery of instruction and services so this does we do work on a consensus basis it's not majority rule so we would like you to introduce yourselves to each other when when I give you the go- aead to start um introduce yourselves to each other and then talk about different things that you would like to see happening in The District in in three to five years it may be decreased class sizes it may be adding more extracurricular programs or curricular programs or sports activities or other activities maybe more of the Arts um adding more staff adding divers staff those kinds of things and then ask questions when people are offering you those comments and when they're you're having those discussions ask for clarification if you would like to and then hopefully paraphrase and come to acceptance consensuses does not mean it's your first choice but it does mean that it you can live with it and support it okay so that's the big difference between majority rule in majority rule you have winners and losers in consensus you have everybody coming to acceptance of being able to live with and supporting what may not be their first choice so again this is strategic planning gone wild you're able to sit wherever you would like to you have no numbers on your name tags you saved me from making out another hundred name tags so I appreciate that and so the five goal areas were student centered learning Staffing Community engagement facilities and finance and culture and climate and so what are goals they're the desired outcomes that are necessary to to fulfill your mission they're aspirational they're positive and they're student centered then objectives are the various means to achieve those goal areas and they are specific tactical and descriptive and then the action plans are what the superintendent and the administrative team will come up with which will give you major activities under each of the objectives under each of the goal areas and then they will have next to them what the what the activity is who's respons for it whether it's the board or the staff and which staff um what are the resources that we need to accomplish that major activity which is usually time people or money what's the time frame for that remember everything unfortunately can't happen in year one so some things will happen in year one year two year three year four year five because sometimes the administrative team and the board will have to build up those resources to be able to accomplish some of the things that you might like to H see happen and then what are the indic indicators of success for each of those activities how will we know that that particular activity has been accomplished okay so just components of goal statement are an action verb usually it's increase explore obtain develop research create then a statement of nouns what is it that you would like to impact okay and then what so what so that what is the outcome that you want to accomplish so a sample goal would be create a safe and secure learning environment equipped to deliver 21st century programs okay then you have the goal writing process so this is where a district took their s their ideas from um their first meeting strength and the challenges strengths were Safety and Security facilities were um strength another strength was facilities improvements building configurations and class size and space challenges were environmental concerns older buildings Safety and Security which can be a challenge and a strength and then mandates and resources drain then they looked at the vision initiatives from the second meeting and they were for this particular group Interactive Learning spaces open floor plans expanding school choice program virtual classrooms safe learning environment equitable distribution of funds for facilities state-of-the-art facilities and all green facilities and then what they came up with was as the goal area was facilities and finance they added Safety and Security to that and the goal statement was to create a safe and secure learning environment equipped to deliver 21st century programs and their objectives were upgrade facilities to be more energy and cost efficient increase internal and external security at all schools and upgrade existing facilities to be more structurally modernized so you've already selected a goal area that you would like to work on we'd like you to review those and challenges from that first meeting and those common themes at the end of that section and then look at the vision and initiatives from the second meeting and look at the common themes from that air from meeting too and then use that information to consider strategies that you would like to include things that you would like to see happening then you'll take those strategies and put them into several buckets anything that goes together can be in a in a separate bucket and develop four to five objectives that contain those strategies that you would like to see happening and then you'll we'll ask you to write an overarching goal statement that's a broad goal statement that will overarch all of the objectives so it's backwards by Design um Tim and I did this last night in another district and they started with identifying what the goal statement was going to be and then they looked at their objectives from there however you want to do it is fine whatever works best for your group is absolutely fine to do but the activity for tonight is to come up ultimately with a goal statement that's brought in in nature come up with three to five object four to five objectives and then um any strategies that you might like to see okay and then we'll ask each group to report out to the larger group much like you did the last time any questions yes no you can move if you want to contribute to to um Community engagement and then you want to go over to student centered learning or you want to go over to culture and climate you can do that just remember everybody's voice is equal tonight nobody's voice is greater or less important than anybody else's and if you have a question just put your hand up and Tim or I will come over we're going to give you until about 705 um to come up with your goal statement your objectives and if you would like to have strategies included in there and then we'll have a sharing out of that and Reporting out and then we'll say good night and thank you so much participating in this wonderful strategic plan that's going to guide the board and the district for the next three to five years okay you can introduce yourself to each others and get started sorry just one more thing once you come to consensus on the goal statement the objectives and any strategies you need to write them on the large Post-it notes that are around the room with your goal area at at the top and we would like to have that done by 705 e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e we e e e e e e e for e e e e e for e e e e e before I e e your think e e e e e e e e e e e e e hey folks guess what time it is it's 5 after 7 so everybody needs to write pretty quickly up on those large Post-it notes so we can report out and get you out of here as close to 7:30 as possible e e e e e e e e is this the other e e e e e e e e e e e I e e okay folks everybody needs to be finished right now okay because when we say at New Jersey school board something starts at 6 and ends at 7:30 that's our goal is to get you out at 7:30 but you're going to be here a few minutes later I know I know e e okay folks it's that time who would like to report out first don't everybody rush the front of the room at the same time you'll all have an opportunity who wants to go first and Reporting out thank you Staffing come on up oh yeah that I can got it all right so for Staffing uh our goal is to recruit and retain staff who reflect the rich background of our student population and that's our primary goal and then with that we had some secondary goals uh recruting committed staff with the ability to be flexible adaptable and to be able to cater to the the diverse needs of our students and then our final piece is to make sure that we're placing staff in their areas of strength so looking at like what what are they good at and making sure that's their role in The District thank you what do you all think good Okay who wants to go next Finance facil ities and finance come on down I feel like Bob Barker so our goal was to create a safe and secure learning environment while remaining fiscally responsible and our objectives we had three upgrade educational athletic and health facilities to be more in and cost efficient the second was adequate dedicated facility or space for an early childhood education and then the third was to leverage technology to streamline District Operations thank you so much who wants to go next culture and climate climate culture I'm bringing you the microphone all right um all right so we have um cultivate an inclusive and respectful climate for all stakeholders that inspires value inspires and values diversity of thought and opinion and then we have um Foster a sense of belonging by increasing the level of participation in extracurriculars by 30% um all levels of stakeholders follow a shared code of conduct administer a panorama survey two times per year to stakeholders of all levels increase the awareness and celebrate the varied cultures represented in the East Windsor Regional School District by infusing cultural learning into the curriculum thank you I owe you okay who wants to go next Community engagement you're up oh good we have two um so our goal statement is to develop and Foster lasting district-wide relationships that connect people of diverse backgrounds through every academic stage of life um okay okay so uh the objectives are one to design and Implement Universal prek that utilizes Community Resources we then have to um develop and Implement summer opportunities to bridge schools and invest in future connections then we have develop Community Resources to immerse students and prepare students for their future interests um and finally we have designed and host districtwide community events to engage and include families in all aspects of school life thank you okay student centered learning hello okay our goal is to increase the academic engagement I'm sorry not to increase the academic achievement of all students through rigorous instruction as defined by by increased collaboration real world application increased engagement and active inquiry this will be measured by utilizing multimodal assessment and challenging each student to perform objectives stem increase exposure to Concepts and content K through 12 the second is Achieve the msgp of 60 in every sub population in ela math and njla third 100% of all staff will be trained to meet the needs of special education students ensuring appropriate placement student teacher ratio and Supportive Services provided okay everybody good with the goals the goal statements the objectives okay so this is what happens next superint I'll we'll deliver all of this information to the superintendent probably in the next day all of the outcomes are going to be on the website and then in June I'm going to be delivering the final plan hopefully Tim will be able to be with me for that so the action plans this is what they look like there'll be the goal area will be listed at the top and stated then the objective and then the major activity will'll have who's responsible for it whether it's the board or whether it's staff and you know possibly departments or whatever resources as I said before usually time people or money timelines remember everything can't happen in year one so some of these things are going to take some time and there's going to need to be some patience even though we want everything to happen overnight and then what are the indicators of success for each of those activities how will we know that that's been achieved okay so the administrative team is going to work on those things after receiving everything from us they already have meetings one outcomes excuse me and meeting two outcomes please watch the school district's website for the posting of this material as well superintendent administrative team will work over on this over the next two months and in June um Tim and I or I will be back to present the final plan to the board and for their approval and we hope that you'll be able to join us on that night for the celebration of having completed it and also recognition of your participation in the plan and I'm not sure exactly what the date is so keep an eye on the website for that and we hope to see you there and I really do before I hand it back over to the board president and the superintendent to thank you for coming tonight thank you so much for having been here we had really great numbers for all three of these sessions and typically they go down from session to session in larger numbers than these went down so you had 60s something at the first meeting 50s something last time and 40s something this time that's really good so I thank you for all of your effort and your energy and your talent and your creativity in putting and working together on these things and we hope to see you in June for the final plan the final plan will consist of everything that we've done so far an executive summary and also all the action plans once that's approved by the board it'll be posted on the website so you all be able to follow along and see what's going on when okay and we also always suggest an annual state of the Strategic plan report by the superintendent often times it's done in the in the time frame in the month that we deliver the plan on that anniversary but a lot of times it's done in September because that's generally the meeting where most people attend board meetings so hopefully it'll be done at one of those yes so things can be added to the Strategic plan and sometimes things can't be done if something can't be done it's up to the administrative team and the board to investigate it so for instance um I was working with a board a couple of years ago down in Ocean County their District was literally a block and a half from their school was literally a block and a half from the ocean and somebody said they wanted a rooftop pool and the building was old it was much older and it was a one-story building and I said that might not be possible because of the age of the building and the weight that would be put on but the superintendent will look into it ask you know for the township engineer to come over and take a look at it they said what about a rooftop garden I said that's something that might be possible so they're looking into both of those things but what happens is if something can't happen then the superintendent when they report out on the state of the Strategic plan they let you know that they investigated and why it wasn't possible to happen Okay and sometimes it might be slated year two and it might have to wait till year three too so that would be explained also yes yeah and then the board and the superintendent and the administrative team can add objectives to these also based on what the goal statement is so they may want to add some things that's going to be a much over I would say that might be a fiveyear objective to to achieve at 100% but that's something that you know that's going to have the administration is going to have to take a look at that and see how possible it is it's it's not going to be possible in year one that's for sure but it may be possible by year five okay okay good yes in East Windsor I don't think I don't think you've done it before that'll be up to the board at the time to see if they want to continue most districts that start a strategic plan usually renew it every five years and go through the same process there's Sometimes some changes that we make along the way in the in the process itself but typically it's the same kind of a a process that you go through absolutely the Strategic a strategic plan if the board and the superintendent wanted to create this on their own it it would be you wouldn't really call it a strategic plan because strategic planning really does involve your community and your stakeholders okay the board also retains the authority to um PRI rep prioritize things also yes the hardest part of this always is having people start the conversation and get to the meat of the conversation in the time frame that's allowed we're talking about stretching the because usually the first meeting is two hours because there's a state of the schools report and then the rest of the meetings are an hour and a half we're talking about adding adding another half hour to each of those meetings so that people don't feel quite as rushed but there there also were and there always are a number of groups that get done in that time so it's trying to you know manage all of that and get everybody to kind of stay focused and that's part of our job and as I said to a couple of the groups the hardest of my job I feel is getting asking people to stop talking because this is one of those opportunities that's very rare for you to be able to sit down and have these deep conversations about what you want to see happen in the district so that's that's part of the hard job that we have is trying to get you all kind of coralled and back into um you know getting the objective of the the evening done I'm going to turn it back over to the board president okay she looks surprised and again thank you so much for being here these are your kids by the way from your website I just want to thank everyone again for coming out I Echo a lot of what Maryann said um it's so great to see students and community members and the um Administration and faculty that did come thank you so much I'd also like to commend our youngest community members who were so well behaved um they deserve a round of applause they were very well behaved yes all the students do you have anything you want to say that's um have a good night make sure you get a brownie the brownie is very good and thank you again and thank you NJ SBA and Maran and Tim