Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools is preparing their next strategic plan to guide another five years of academic progress, and we want to make sure that it includes your voice.
The current five-year strategic plan was developed in 2019 and established goals for the district related to student achievement, equity and access, community engagement, human resource development, and climate and safety. However, the way education works has changed significantly since 2019, perhaps most notably because of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Board of Education Vice Chair Alexandre Bohannon, a co-leader for the next strategic plan, says it’s important that the district adjust its educational strategies to reflect new circumstances that affect schools. He also emphasized the plan as a concrete way to commit to continual improvement and establish concrete metrics for evaluating success.
“Your strategic plan is supposed to be your north star that guides your organization in what its goals are and how you’re going to achieve them,” Bohannon said. “No matter what kind of organization you’re a part of, if you don’t have a strategic plan, you’re going to be operating very loosely.”
Alexandra Hoskins, the district’s executive director of systems of coherence and strategic planning and the other co-leader for the new plan, says that the goals identified in the current plan are still relevant, but the new plan is a chance to identify new priorities. As for what those priorities will be, it will depend on the feedback the district receives from stakeholders over the next few months.
The steering committee for the new plan includes representatives from the Board of Education, district administrators, teachers, students, parents, and more. The committee has already met several times, and now the focus shifts to gathering input from the wider community about what the district is already doing well, as well as what needs to change.
The first input collection phase will last through January, and the committee will create a draft strategic plan in February. In March, the draft will be available for public review, and it will be revised based on further feedback in April with hopes of proposing it for the Board of Education’s approval in May. Leaders hope that this timeline will give stakeholders all over the district plenty of chances to make their concerns heard.
“We are very fortunate to have a highly engaged, highly involved community of people committed to public education,” Hoskins said. “It is one of the biggest assets that this district has.”
While specific proposals will only come after extensive input from the community, Hoskins identifies a four-part “priority framework” to structure the new strategic plan around. Those parts are student engagement, employee engagement, community engagement, and support systems engagement. That means enlisting the help of district employees across all positions, parents and families, community organizations, and everyone else who contributes to schools to create more rewarding academic experiences for students.
Those experiences have begun to take form during the steering committee meetings. Hoskins says that students have been vocal about wanting more hands-on activities in the classroom, more choice in the courses they take, and more unique curricula that doesn’t lean as much on lectures and textbooks. Leaders have been pleased to hear that students want to be more active participants in their own education, and they want student feedback to play a starring role in the new plan.
“Students are at the heart of what we do,” Hoskins said. “They are why we are here. Without them, the school district doesn’t exist, so they are our top priority.”
Stakeholders across Winston-Salem and Forsyth County are encouraged to keep an eye out for the “We Listen” campaign, which will launch online later this week as the first widespread public resource to provide feedback about the next five-year plan. The best possible outcome for students, as well as the communities they will grow up to contribute to, will require as many voices as possible to be heard.
“Every resident of Forsyth County has a vested interest in our schools,” Bohannon said. “A thriving school district helps form a thriving community.”