This document has been formatted for printing from your browser from the Web site of the Illinois Association of School Boards.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE --This document is © copyrighted by the Illinois Association of School Boards. IASB hereby grants to school districts and other Internet users the right to download, print and reproduce this document provided that (a) the Illinois Association of School Boards is noted as publisher and copyright holder of the document and (b) any reproductions of this document are disseminated without charge and not used for any commercial purpose.
Illinois School Board Journal
July/August 2005
Practical PR: Strategic process gives voice to entire district
by Jean Hockensmith
Jean Hockensmith is community relations coordinator for SD 45, DuPage County, in Villa Park and a member of the Illinois chapter of the National School Public Relations Association.
Having the superintendent don a wizard's hat is not an everyday occurrence. That's why it proved a great motivational tool, prompting staff, parents and community members to put on their thinking caps during a School District 45 strategic planning session.
Superintendent William C. Schewe wears the wizard's hat, as well as a crab-shaped hat and a baseball cap complete with ponytail, to help his school board look at strategic planning as an important way to educate all stakeholders on accomplishments, as well as gain input on support for what the district will do.
SD 45 is situated in Villa Park, about 25 miles west of Chicago's Loop. The district's eight schools include two middle schools, three K-5 elementary schools, one K-2 school and a grade 3-5 school. Part of the district includes neighboring Lombard, and nearly 3,900 students are in class daily. In order to ensure the best education possible, school board members follow a goal-setting process that includes a strategic planning session.
Every other fall, the administration facilitates focus groups that include staff, parents and current students, as well as high school students who recently went through the district. These focus groups are held at each building. Other special groups for custodial and secretarial personnel, as well as staff who service students in other ways, such as speech or counseling, meet at central locations. A group of administrators travels to the high school to meet with former students, and opinions are also solicited from current middle school students.
At each focus group, participants talk about district strengths along with concerns about curriculum, staff, finances, buildings and grounds, and a catch-all "other" category. From these strengths and concerns, the groups identify district priorities.
Examples of these priorities have included air-conditioning each building, maintaining small class size, facilitating all-day kindergarten, teaching foreign language at a younger age and continuing to strengthen curriculum. All input furthers the understanding of what is needed in the district.
The student input has been particularly insightful. Students have asked for summer activities, more science labs and healthy food choices in the cafeteria, but they also provided a lighter side by lamenting that "the mile run is too long."
"The focus groups are especially important for staff," Schewe said. "It gives each of them the opportunity, in a small group, to tell the central office as well as that building's administrators what we do well, what needs improvement and what needs to be done."
Schewe stresses that the parent focus groups offer a great forum for "face-to-face feedback," and input from high school students who attended SD 45 is a welcome part of the process.
"There is sometimes a common thread that alerts us to a problem," Schewe said of the data from the student groups.
As the focus groups wrap up in late fall, the district sends out a 34-question parent survey. During the last strategic planning session, the district began offering the survey on its Web site. Parents could even complete the survey online while visiting the school for curriculum night or the book fair. As with every part of this process, the survey is done in-house with the technology department generating the form and tabulating the results. The end result is a useful tool that comes at little or no cost to the district.
"Having the capacity to create, read and compile survey data saves us $10,000 to $20,000 each year," Schewe said. "It is essential that school districts do a parent survey at least every other year, whether you incorporate strategic planning/goal setting or not. A parent survey with a high rate of return is the only accurate way of measuring parents' opinions on various aspects of staff and program."
About 68 percent of the students returned the last survey. Since many parents returned only one survey per family, the return rate was probably closer to 82 percent, Schewe said. Next time, the district will ask that parents return only one form per family.
On the fall 2004 survey, sample areas showed parents who strongly agree or agree on these key items:
A great amount of skill beyond wizardry is then necessary when the Board of Education invites community members to join them at the district's strategic planning session. More than 80 people attended the one held in January 2005. These stakeholders were invited from neighboring elementary and high school districts, the village boards of both towns served by the district, local realtors, staff and parents from each of the eight schools, the local community colleges, chambers of commerce and the park/recreation department. After a light breakfast, the entire group reviewed the outcome of the last strategic planning session, as well as the goals and actions for the past two years.
After the opening session, the large group split into about 10 subgroups, each of which appointed a chair, a recorder and a spokesperson. Each subgroup participant was asked to take a quantity of sticky notes and write one thought about a strength or area of concern on each to share within their subgroup.
Next the subgroups selected five priorities for the district, based on the information from those notes, sharing their top five priorities after lunch. The day ended with a vote to determine an over-all "top five" priorities for the district.
Then the real work of the board began. Even though board members participated in the strategic planning session, the process requires them to review the information from the focus groups, the parent survey and the planning session to formulate goals that will be reviewed quarterly and revised in two years by the same process.
Beyond a set of goals in keeping with the district mission, this process helped assure that the board would proceed with the support of its stakeholders. This was evidenced when the community supported a recent referendum on the first try when it hadn't approved such a ballot measure in 17 years. A side benefit of this strategic planning process is helping to market the school district.
"District 45 values public support for our schools and strategic planning is the process we use to help us work toward that end result," said Susan Schwicardi, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. "The process gives the community a voice.
"The time and effort is great, but the payoff is greater. The community supports our efforts. We value their opinions, and their suggestions for improvement are often noted in the yearly goals to which we are held accountable."