SPS board, superintendent finalize strategic plan. What made the cut?

In a new strategic plan, Springfield's relatively new superintendent and school board have outlined what they want to achieve.

The board voted 7-0 Tuesday to finalize the five-year plan, which was months in the making and is meant to improve students' academic success, put staffing and training in place to support that goal, and measure progress.

"A strategic plan is often compared to a road map which helps determine how to reach your desired destination. Similar to a map, our strategic plan doesn’t begin and end there," wrote Superintendent Grenita Lathan, in a letter at the start of the long-range plan. "It provides other important information to ensure our journey is well planned and successful."

The document, which will guide policy and spending decisions, is built on four priorities: Success-ready students, organizational efficiency, collaborative culture and quality learning environments. The two top priorities have the most depth.

Improving student success

In all, the plan outlines 14 goals plus strategies on how to accomplish each one. The first six goals are connected to producing "success-ready" students.

The top goal is having more students score at or above grade level in key academic areas measured by the state and national exams including reading and math.

The plan calls for growth, of at least 2%, over a three-year period.

In support of that, the district plans to revamp curriculum, improve staff training, address student behavior issues, remove barriers and offer more "real world" experiences.

The plan also calls for an effective school board, a review of administrative positions, better pay for teachers and staff, and a better-functioning Human Resources Department.

Other goals include addressing facility needs, keeping students and staff safe, forging community partnerships and prioritizing meaningful communication and input — with parents, families, and other stakeholders.

Work on strategic plan resulted in new mission statement

The strategic plan was a priority for Lathan, who started in mid-2021, and the relatively new school board. Six of the seven members are in their first three-year term.

The state's largest district worked with a consulting group to gather input for the plan. It included 55 site visits, 618 in-person interviews, 12 focus groups, and a survey with input from 1,107 students and 4,230 adults.

Facing a deadline — the plan was due to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in mid-December — the board hammered out the details in meetings and long retreats.

"We have put in a lot of work," said board president Denise Fredrick, at the Dec. 6 retreat. "... It's not an easy process. It is a long process."

Along the way, the district finalized a new mission: "SPS is committed to the well-being of each student by providing high-quality academic opportunities."

Its corresponding vision reads: "SPS will be the district of choice that equips each student to pursue their goals and highest potential as an engaged contributor to society."

Concerns about 'lack of trust' and micro-management

By Tuesday's meeting, the final priorities and goals were set. The only changes requested were about the wording of specific strategies — the actions the district planned to use to meet each goal.

Laura Mullins, president of the Springfield National Education Association, addressed the board early in the meeting to thank the district for its "thoughtfulness and transparency" while developing the plan.

"I'm excited to see the focus on improved safety and discipline processes but most of all, I'm happy to see a focus on the retention of staff. Over the last few months, I've spoken about the last of trust that teachers feel SPS demonstrates in their abilities as educators," she said. "This feeling is perpetuated within a couple spots in the strategic plan."

Mullins pointed to strategies in the plan that called for teachers to be "monitored." She said: "I want you to consider the message this communicates to staff, if you are truly here to support them."

She said teachers and staff should be treated like responsible adults and not micromanaged. "I encourage you to show good faith in your staff by rethinking the perception the current language communicates and considering language with a more supportive mindset."

Later in the meeting, board vice president Maryam Mohammadkhani asked to use "supports" instead of "monitors" in relation to strategies involving teachers. That request failed.

"We've had multiple retreats about this (plan). I have a concern that here we are the night of the vote and we're going in and continuing to wordsmith and make minor changes," said board member Danielle Kincaid. " ... I'm not inclined to change little words here and there."

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Board member Shurita Thomas-Tate said she heard the concerns raised by teachers but countered that "monitors" is about accountability about how curriculum and instruction are implemented.

She said board requests to tweak the strategies, which the administration is responsible for, felt like "overstepping our roles" or micromanaging.

"I know this board is very passionate about this strategic plan being 'ours' as a board to do with, I'm not sure what, other than to monitor our one employee, our superintendent," she said. "But the strategies of how they do that is not ours. We were responsible for those goals and we did that part."

To improve student achievement, Lathan said the district will "hold people accountable for providing children with a quality education."

Lathan said she was caught off-guard by the last-minute wording request, noting discussions with the board about the plan continued through Monday.

"If you truly believe in accountability and high achievement — with the number of people who have talked about declining test scores over the past several years — we have to get busy as a district and as a community," Lathan said. " ... If you want us to deliver, then we need to move forward."

Mohammadkhani countered that the leadership of the district should support staff and that monitoring is part of supporting.

"I will listen to the stakeholders until the moment that I have to put my vote in," she said. "I am sorry that I am a disappointment to some of my colleagues but it is what it is."

Making 'diverse workforce' part of strategic plan

At the Dec. 6 board retreat, one strategy regarding a diverse workforce received a lot of attention.

No one spoke against having a diverse workforce but a few members questioned making it a goal, arguing it might lead to subpar hires. They also argued demographic changes ought to occur naturally and not be manipulated or forced.

Board member Kelly Byrne said at the retreat that he didn't want more qualified candidates to be overlooked in an effort to diversity staff so it more closely resembled the demographic makeup of students. "I don't see how we can be responsible in our hiring practices in an effort to equitably hire the most talented candidates and balance that with trying to manipulate the diversity makeup of our staff."

The discussion raised the ire of community members who wrote letters and signed up to address the board at the Tuesday meeting.

"As SPS parents we find it embarrassing that this board would even hesitate to make a 'diverse' workforce a goal in (the) new strategic plan," wrote parents Erin Gray and Chris Schulze in a Dec. 9 letter.

Currently, more than 1 in every 4 students in the district is a person of color, but at least 9 out of every 10 teachers and staff are white.

In a Dec. 9 letter to the board, Sherry Buchanan said the "discrepancy between the diversity of our student body and of our teachers and staff is significant and must be addressed."

"There should be no assumption that this goal would lead to hiring practices that give preference to under-qualified or less-qualified personnel," she wrote. "It is a concern to me that such suggestions have been made and that any board member might expect this to be an outcome of a diversification goal."

Mark Dixon, president of the Bartley-Decatur Neighborhood Center, said for some in the community, maintaining the "status quo that has existed for scores of years" is ideal.

"Why do anything which might earn them that cursed designation of 'progressive.' Why rock the board? Let matters simply work themselves out, we've got time. Meanwhile, for many others, the impacts and impressions left by gradualism and the laissez-faire approach to which those with time are prone have now manifested in deep, inter-generational traumas and gaps on most every measurable scale," said Dixon, at the meeting.

Dixon noted his daughter, a registered nurse, moved from Springfield to a large Texas city, in part to give her own child access to more Black and diverse teachers.

"When I hear from this very dais that giving attention to attracting and retaining a diverse workforce is not deemed to be something worthy of inclusion amongst the list of the district's strategic goals — and particularly that doing so might compromise the qualify of said workforce with lesser folks than desired — I am at once heartbroken, frustrated, angry, disappointed and, yes, fearfully concerned about the direction our district may be headed. Please, enough with the either/or myopic, self-informing approaches (to) education governance. I challenge you, let us be better than that."

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Cynthia Erb, a retired English and film professor, said given the teacher shortage, the last thing the district ought to be is "off-putting." She said diversity ought to be a factor, one of many, in the hiring process.

"The basic goal is to diversify the workforce, not to settle for less than the best," Erb wrote in a Dec. 9 letter. "There is no necessary contradiction between diversity and excellence."

Darline Mabins, diversity and equity director at the Community Partnership of the Ozarks, wrote that the "disappointing" comments of the board left her "at a loss" and some were "offensive."

"Do you truly understand what diversity is? Do you understand that there is diversity of thought, religion, age, culture, ethnicity, abilities, sexual orientation, race, socioeconomic status, gender," Mabins wrote in a Dec. 13 letter.

"Are you making decisions for all of our diverse students? Are the decisions also bearing in mind the diverse parents and community members that reside and contribute to our community."

Fredrick, the board president, noted larger districts all over Missouri have focused on a diverse workforce as part of their strategic plans. She read passages from many of them.

"We are the largest school district in the state and so I think it is incumbent on us and our community that we make sure that we make that a focus somewhere in our strategic plan and we don't leave that out," she said

At the Tuesday meeting, Byrne recommended changing part of the plan dealing with diverse staff and a majority of the board embraced the change. There was a back-and-forth over the use of the word "celebrates," "prioritizes" or "values" in relation to diversity.

The final version, approved by the board, read: "Collaborate with the Humans Resources Department to ensure that SPS is a welcoming and inclusive district that values diversity and utilizes equitable practices for attracting, hiring, and retaining the most qualified staff."

Claudette Riley covers education for the News-Leader. Email tips and story ideas to criley@news-leader.com.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: SPS school leaders finalize strategic plan. What made the cut?