Clark-Pleasant Community Schools will focus on what school officials call three core values moving forward, as the school board approved a strategic plan this week to direct the schools for years to come.
The three core values include being student-centered, maintaining high expectations and building strong, inclusive relationships in the school community, according to school officials. But more than that, the school district has mapped out specific ways to achieve those goals and a process to measure progress.
This is the first time Clark-Pleasant Schools has defined its core values, spokesperson John Venter said.
The process began at a summer retreat at Franklin College, during which board members and administrators gave their input on what ideas were most viable for the school district to pursue. From that input, Associate Superintendent Kimberly Fifer crafted a strategic plan, including a mission statement, those three core values and strategies to achieve the goals. The plan also includes timelines for monitoring the goals to see if they are being achieved, he said.
“We began exploring our mission for our schools and what our core values are and what kind of priorities we wanted to put on our jobs,” Venter said. “It was pretty much trying to narrow all the possible focus points of what the schools could have.”
The mission statement places the responsibility of student success on teachers and administrators.
“Clark-Pleasant Community School Corporation will provide learning experiences that ensure all students reach their potential,” the mission statement says.
Although the core values may have broad language, the strategies under each goal for those core values have specific benchmarks. Under the goal to increase academic performance and build a viable curriculum, for example, administrators are tasked with exploring and adopting a social-emotional curriculum, strategies to help students manage their emotions in positive ways. Under the goal to ensure students are ready for life after high school, administrators want to build relationships with industry partners so students can have more career options, according to school officials.
District administrators will monitor if each goal is being met at least once a year. For example, under the goal of increasing instructional effectiveness, new teacher cohorts group together teachers who are just beginning their careers with instructional coaches. Administrators conduct an individual internal audit of each teacher’s performance and report on strengths and areas to improve upon at least once every six months. The district will also conduct a semiannual external audit of areas of strength and needed improvement for the district as a whole, Venter said.
The strategic plan also includes goals to keep Clark-Pleasant schools fiscally responsible, including maintaining a 12 percent cash balance in the education fund and creating financial reports with cash flow projections for the next month, year, and five years. The district will also identify its biggest financial needs in the form of three, five and 10-year plans each year starting in 2020, according to school officials.
