Savannah-Chatham public schools to present revised strategic plan to board
Savannah-Chatham County Public School System (SCCPSS), like most organizations, has a forward-facing roadmap for success. Back in 2021, the district mapped its Way Forward Strategic Plan through 2026. How well the district has followed said plan over the past few years may be up for debate.
At Wednesday’s February school board Informal Session, district leaders will share the latest update to the Way Forward 2026 Strategic Plan. The version accessible on SCCPSS’s board documents webpage contains revisions derived from Superintendent Denise Watts’s 100-Day Plan Report.
Why revise the plan midstream?
“This map will drive everything else that we do,” said Watts at the school board’s Dec. 6, 2023 Accountability Committee Meeting. At the time, she was seeking clarity from board members on what they felt might be missing from the plan before administrators made final revisions.
Watts and board members discussed how to simplify the original plan’s structure of the strategic priorities to improve clarity for the public. Further discussion touched upon specific key performance indicators that would hold the district accountable.
The latest version of the plan appears to have used suggestions from last month’s committee meeting. The plan has cut down on wordiness. Subjectively, it also appears to have less visual clutter than the December version.
Visual design elements within the presentation enhance certain aspects of the strategic planning framework. Page three of the presentation, for example, uses design elements to outline where the school board and district administration’s responsibilities differ as well as overlap. The school board, for example, should manage Vision & Mission as well as Guiding Principles. The administration, however, handles Strategies & Tactics as well as Execution & Monitoring. The areas of overlap between board and administrators lie within the categories of Strategic Priorities and Performance Objectives & Measures.
Strategic priorities: How the district plans to succeed and measure it
The plan categorizes four strategic priorities to achieve what the district terms, “Transformation of Organizational Climate and Culture.” Those priorities are:
STUDENTS – Student Growth and Achievement for Choice-filled Futures
STAKEHOLDERS – Quality Family and Community Engagement Experiences
EMPLOYEES – Talent Management for Optimal Employee Performance
STEWARDSHIP – Efficient, Effective, and Equitable Resource Stewardship
The presentation draft illuminates performance objectives within those strategic priorities alongside the specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can ultimately be measured. For example, under Strategic Priority 1 (students), Performance Objective A is listed as, “Promote development of foundational skills and expand early learning opportunities.” One of the four action items (which will eventually serve as KPIs) to achieve that objective is, “Increase the number of pre-K classes.”
Overall, the plan details three to four performance objectives with relevant and measurable key performance indicators for each of the four main strategic priorities. In other words, the strategic plan presents a vision for the district, but also includes the district’s intentional actions toward achieving that vision.
Notably the plan also provides examples of what are considered lagging KPIs, or current challenges, within the district:
Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey
Staff vacancy and employee turnover rate
On-time bus arrival
3rd grade Reading on Grade Level
Timeline toward implementation
Page 24 of the strategic plan presentation, set for Wednesday, lays out the efforts made, thus far, in revision and implementation. Those efforts date back to July when Watts started her tenure as superintendent.
If members of the public wish to comment on the district’s strategic priorities through 2026 or other school board agenda items, they can request to speak before the board after the Regular Session, which starts at 2 p.m. Feb. 7, 2024. The strategic plan will also be posted for public comment through Feb. 21.
March 7 through March 31, the district will develop a KPI dashboard and reporting matrix should the plan be adopted by the board at the March 6 school board meeting.
Joseph Schwartzburt is the education and workforce development reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at JSchwartburt@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah Chatham County Public Schools strategic plan update
