Glenview School District 34 will start creating a new strategic plan in August that will outline the district’s future needs and goals, according to the district superintendent.
The strategic plan will likely focus on the next five years to help the district envision what it will look like moving forward and what resources are needed accomplish the goals of the plan, said Superintendent Dane Delli. The district currently operates with “goals and indicators” that are developed annually, but the district needs a long-term strategic plan, he said.
The administration will start preliminary work on the plan over the summer, and focus groups will be created and parent surveys sent out in the fall, Delli said. The district hopes the plan will be put together by January 2019 and implemented beginning in the 2019-2020 school year, he said.
In May, the Board of Education approved hiring the Consortium for Educational Change to help the district develop the strategic plan, Delli said.
“Any school district that is committed to continuous improvement should always embrace needing to change and improve the system,” Delli said.
Delli recommended that the district create a strategic plan as part of the transition plan he worked on during his first year as superintendent during the 2017-2018 school year.
After completing the transition plan, Delli said he learned that the community believes the children are the “life blood” of the district, the district has highly qualified and dedicated teachers and the parent community is “very involved, caring and generous.”
The recommendations made in the transition plan will be addressed in the strategic plan, Delli said. Some recommendations are a continuation of what the district does and others are new recommendations, according to the plan.
The transition plan recommends that the district complete a large-scale facility study, which started in January, to determine maintenance requirements and potential increases in square footage to help alleviate the at-capacity district buildings, Delli said. The plan also recommends improving the district’s alignment of curriculum, instruction and assessment, he said.
In the transition plan, Delli addressed how the district reduced the deficit for fiscal year 2019 by $1 million with cost-cutting moves, like a joint bid for special education transportation.
“A major artery” of the strategic plan will deal with finance, operations and management, Delli said.
The strategic plan may also make recommendations that will require district funds, so the administration will have to cross check with the budget to make sure the goals in the strategic plan can be achieved financially, Delli said.
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