Triad Board of Education members recently heard a presentation surrounding the district’s new strategic plan. The document will be used to “define the expectations and aspirations” that will drive the district over the next five years. (Photo submitted)
Three years in the making, Triad has a new plan to guide the district.
Superintendent Vickie Hoffman and Chief Academic Officer Morgan Fagnani shared Triad’s strategic plan with the Board of Education during its meeting Thursday.
Hoffman said she and Fagnani have felt the district was in need of a strategic plan since they arrived at Triad several years ago.
It is “designed to chart a course for the next five years and define the expectations and aspirations that will drive the district during this time,” according to a statement from Hoffman.
Fagnani said “teamwork and collaboration” between teachers, administrators and community members went into creating the document.
“A lot of hard work has gone into this,” she said.
The group began with considering “the why,” Fagnani said, in order to create mission and vision statements for the district.
“So many people had the same beliefs and we really came together,” she said.
Once the foundation was laid, Fagnani said the bulk of the group’s time was spent focusing on strategic focus areas.
She explained that the group started with three areas, but whittled it down to two: personalized and connected.
“Personalized” is divided into “reframing education,” which focuses on data-driven instruction and “whole child,” which ensures social-emotional needs of each child are met.
The “connected” focus area revolves around creating relationships among the district and community to foster a “sense of belonging, unity and pride,” according to the plan.
Fagnani said zeroing in on these two strategic goals will help staff and faculty to actively work to achieve them.
“We didn’t want (the strategic plan) to become something that just sat on a shelf,” she said.
Hoffman added that the strategic plan continues to build on Triad’s “Portrait of a Graduate” and curriculum audits.
She said the document will continually be evaluated and adjusted as the district meets goals.
That process will begin this summer.
Hoffman said staff from the elementary, middle and high schools will spend the summer creating action plans to meet goals from the strategic focus areas.
She said the “building leadership team” will be tasked with answering, “How does this apply to us and what are we going to do?”
A “district leadership team” will review the plans in August to ensure they are cohesive and “see if there are any gaps,” Hoffman explained.
The district team will continue to meet each month to focus on one goal. They will evaluate it at a building level and across the district.
Board members voiced support for the strategic plan and the process moving forward.
Board President Chris Millice asked if staff members supported it as well.
“We got complete buy-in, right?” he asked.
Hoffman assured him that staff was involved in the development of the plan and their feedback will be incorporated as it evolves. She said a number of the goals are based on responses teachers shared during instructional audits.
“We did a lot of work to understand our “why” and our mission and what we wanted to do,” she said.
Hoffman also noted that there are currently no staff member or students quarantined due to COVID-19.
“That’s a great improvement compared to where we’ve been,” she said.