Radnor's Strategic Plan Faltering

By Eric G. Zajac

To install a meaningful Strategic Plan, its goals must be connected with the District's Goals. The Strategic Plan must especially address Radnor's needs as regards foreign languages, science, and math.

This initiative was supposed to have begun with the Core Team creating a Mission Statement, Core Values and Strategic Objectives for groups of Action Teams to create Action Plans. Measurement Teams created rubrics that would then evaluate the effectiveness of the Action Plans. Members of the community (parents, residents, teachers, administrators, students) have worked long and hard on this process and it is critical their efforts not go to waste, but the process is failing them on many levels. Action Teams have not met since last May and the content of the Strategic Objectives, from which they were working, is not specific enough to create concrete, measurable Action Plans for Measurement Teams to evaluate. The Strategic Objectives are not even linked to the District Goals, approved by the School Board last November. This is a Strategic Plan that currently talks a lot without saying much of anything at all.

If this wasn't enough to stall the process, in the fall teachers who had been involved with the SPI walked away from it. They cited a lack of mutual trust and respect on the part of the administration, particularly after the contentious teacher contract negotiations of the spring and summer that had this district on the verge of a strike. Since one of the Strategies created by the Core Team included an "environment of mutual trust, respect and open communication" it is easy to see how the teachers felt their participation in the process would be hypocritical.

The number of key Administrators involved in the SPI who have left, or are soon leaving, the District is startling. Only one Principal who was involved at the beginning of the initiative is planning to return next year and several Assistant Principals who were actively participating are also leaving or have left. Others, such as the Assistant Superintendent, the Director of Human Resources and the Director of Finance are also gone, or will be, in the next few months.

Of the nine School Board Members, only two were "invited" to be members of the Core Planning Team, the President and Vice-President of the Board.

The School Board must take charge and reconvene the Core Planning Team. Since less than half of the Core Planning Team will still be in the District at the end of the year (teachers are not currently active, three administrators have left, and the two students will graduate), this Core Team will need new members. The Core Team needs to evaluate the entire process and incorporate concerns and questions that have arisen regarding the substance and relevance of the work. Strategic Objectives and Action Plans must be connected to well-reasoned and well-written District Goals. Every School Board Member should be a part of this Core Team, or of an Action or Measurement Team, not just the Board President and Vice-President.

The members of the initial SPI must also be acknowledged for the months of hard work they have put into this process. The Board must recognize their efforts, giving concrete feedback to the Action Teams for the Action Plans created. Teachers must be recognized for the stakeholders that they are in the future of the District and be invited back to the process. Their involvement and their input must be valued and utilized meaningfully. Finally, after spending over $50,000 on this initiative, the Board must monitor costs and, thanks to School Board Member Eric Zajac's urging, the SPI is now a line item on the budget.

These steps would ensure that the School District will pass a meaningful Strategic Plan featuring substantive elements and objectives, not just colorful platitudes.