Here’s an old model of the strategic planning process:
Each building in the school district puts together some kind of lengthy, all-encompassing document. Then all these various treatises are moved up the bureaucracy and bundled into what school governance expert Doug Eadie calls “a kind of monster strategic plan.”
Then it’s the school board’s turn. It’s supposed to vote on the gargantuan final document after having virtually nothing to do with its creation. No wonder many board members hate this process and call it a waste of time.
Eadie agrees. In an Oct. 13 National Affiliate webinar titled “The Board-Superintendent Strategic Change Team,” Eadie said this type of planning — and “the old-time notion of a five-year plan” is obsolete. Instead, Eadie, the CEO of Doug Eadie & Company and a columnist for American School Board Journal, offered a better approach that involves creating a portfolio of real district challenges, the contents of which can then be prioritized and acted on with real focus and resolve.
“There is a revolution going on in planning,” Eadie said. “You have to be aware of it, and it’s basically the emergence of the portfolio approach. It’s a kind of lean and mean approach to getting change and beauty of it is — it works.”
One virtue of this approach is that it involves the board from the beginning. Eadie said boards should begin the process with a retreat that lasts at least a day (a day and a half is even better). Anything less, he said, is just a long meeting.
But this retreat may be not what many board members are used to. There will be discussion of the vision statement, but not one that lasts hours. The purpose is not to spend the entire time “wordsmithing,” Eadie said, but on identifying specific challenges facing the district.
These challenges might be demographic changes, such as a growing influx on non-English-speaking students; behavior issues, such as a rise in bullying; or perhaps a looming financial problem any issues that are too complex to deal with in the course of the regular board meetings.
“What’s going to emerge during that retreat is a change challenge,” Eadie said.
The retreat may or may not have an outside facilitator. Other stakeholders perhaps a municipal official or the president of the local community college can be included. The superintendent can bring in additional data on things like student achievement and graduation rates.
The board will talk about prioritizing these change challenges, but and this is especially important it will not take any votes. Instead, after discussion, it will refer the matter to a Planning Committee made up of board members.
One webinar participant said the board for his rural school district has only five members and asked if that is two small for a planning committee. The size of the district or the board doesn’t matter, Eadie replied. He suggested the board establish a “virtual” planning committee, comprised of all five board members, which could meet monthly on weeks that board is not holding regular meetings.
“The change initiatives I’m talking about are not magic,” Eadie said. “They’re just projects. The magic is identifying the issues you’re going to tackle.”
