Developing Your Strategic Plan

Hi,

We’re having an incredible fall here in Vancouver with blue skies and mild weather. I took my son up to Loon Lake for his Boy’s Club event and we took in the beauty of the lake with mist hovering over the water and hikes under the canopy of 10 story cedars and firs. Our fantastic day was topped off by the Vancouver Canucks hockey team winning their first game of the season over the ‘Habs…better plan our Stanley Cup parade now. ;^)

As the school year unfolds, many school leaders request additional information about our strategic planning services. I’ve completed numerous strategic plans for every kind of private school you can imagine (day, boarding, international, preparatory, special needs, K-12, ESL, elite sports, single gender, rural, urban, religious), school districts, and post secondary institutions. And of course, I would be pleased to develop a strategic plan for your school too. This is time of year to begin planning the process and retaining my services.

One of the key questions asked is what is the best process is to develop the most suitable strategic plan for your type school? How can you gather stakeholder input to design a plan that is developed efficiently but has the most buy-in and provides the most effective direction for your board and staff?

Today I’m going to share with you several tips on how to utilize a planning process that suits your school’s culture and needs.

To your success,

Doug Halladay

President
Halladay Education Group Inc.
www.HalladayEducationGroup.com

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P.S. Don’t forget to go to our secure Online Store for our Strategic Planning or School Start-Up Toolkits.

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IN THIS ISSUE
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1. In The News

2. Focus On Our Key Services

3. Developing Your Strategic Plan

4. Products At Our Online Store

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1. IN THE NEWS
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>> HIGH TURNOVER AMOUNT PRINCIPALS
Austin American-Statesman: University of Texas researchers have found that about 70 percent of new public high school principals in Texas leave their jobs within the first five years. Only about half of new principals stay on the job at least three years, College of Education researchers found. And principals in high-poverty schools are leaving the soonest.

>> SUCCESS ACADEMY A MODEL FOR NATIVE AMERICAN EDUCATION
Rapid City Journal: The program was developed to keep freshmen in school and improve academic achievement at the boarding school that served students from 30 different states.

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2. FOCUS ON OUR KEY SERVICES
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(A) STARTING A SCHOOL

Starting a school can be challenging and you never have a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression. That’s why you need a firm with experience starting schools in USA, Canada, and Internationally.

(B) STRATEGIC PLANNING

We can lead the development of your school’s Strategic Plan, which will build consensus, motivate donors, and define critical priorities for your Board and Administration for school improvement.

(C) BOARD GOVERNANCE WORKSHOPS

Do you want your school to have the best board possible? Our full-day governance workshop (in combination with our informative online self-assessment survey) will fine-tune your board’s performance and focus priorities.

(D) SCHOOL EVALUATIONS

A school review is critical to knowing if you’re heading in the right direction. As a board member, are you sure your school is doing the best it can? Get the whole picture with our “In-Depth School Performance Review and Action Plan.” Click on the following link for more info: http://www.halladayeducationgroup.com/institution_assessments.php

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3. DEVELOPING YOUR STRATEGIC PLAN
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YOUR PLAN SHOULD ANSWER 4 QUESTIONS

Strategic planning need not be frustrating, unproductive, or costly. Done right, it raises support in your community and have enormous value to your school’s growth. The ultimate product of your plan is your plan itself - the board’s determination of the strategies that will guide the decisions of your organization and your annual operational plan; your blueprint for your school’s future. The process of strategic planning is sequential and raises a progression of questions that HEG uses to examine assumptions, gather and incorporate information about the present, and anticipate the world in which your school will be working in the future. Your plan asks:

- Where is your school now?
- Where do you want your school to be?
- How does your school get there?
- How does your school measure your progress and know you’ve gotten there?

DON’T BE REACTIVE

Many schools spend their time reacting to unexpected changes instead of anticipating and preparing for them. This is called crisis management. Schools caught off guard spend a great deal of time and resources "playing catch up." They use up energy and funds coping with immediate problems with little energy left to anticipate and prepare for the future. This unproductive cycle locks schools into a reactive posture. It does not have to be that way. The alternative is our well tested planning process that provides a viable alternative to knee-jerk management. Our step-by-step planning process provides definite objectives and end products that can be implemented and measured. Very simply, it’s a process by which your school can look into the future, identify a picture of that future based on current data, and control forces that affect you. This allows your school to:

- Identify areas of operation needing attention and use it as a springboard to strengthen performance;
- Identify and reach consensus on critical issues (e.g., finance, enrollment, marketing, fundraising, HR, academic programs, student performance, facilities) before they become a crisis;
- Articulate a uniform, shared mission and vision, and provide a clearer focus for the school, producing efficiency and effectiveness, participation, and ownership by stakeholders;
- Allocate resources to opportunities and improve finances and projections;
- Build trust, respect, team-work, and communication amongst board members and Administration;
- Create a framework that guides decision making and ensures that members of the school are working towards the same goals, even if the environment around your school changes;
- Gain credibility amongst current and prospective donors and identify critical projects for investment;
- Ensure that board members understand their roles, responsibilities, and board-wide priorities;
Monitor performance and provide benchmarks from which progress can be measured.

PLANNING PROCESS

The following provides a framework for the process that we utilize in the development of your school’s Strategic Plan. It can of course be modified to suit your needs.

- Determine the scope of your Strategic Planning process, and subsequent steps and timelines;
- Orient the board, administration, faculty, and parents with the planning process;
- Obtain community views on the school’s performance via focus group interviews and surveys;
- Assemble internal and external background data to determine where your school is now (e.g., enrollment, finance, student retention, staff retention, human resources, demographics);
- Re/define your vision, mission, core values, educational philosophy, and critical success factors;
- Assess your current situation and your school’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT’s);
- Identify, prioritize, and frame the critical issues holding your school back and priorities for change;
- Develop strategic goals, aims, and objectives for success;
- Develop your action plans for improvement based on your goals and objectives;
- Prepare your internal and public Strategic Planning document(s) for board approval;
- Implement the plan with your board and administration

To find out more about our firm’s strategic planning process and recent testimonials, and learn more about how we can help provide you solutions, please email HEG at info@halladayeducationgroup.com to discuss your needs in more detail.

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4. ONLINE STORE
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[!FIRST], here are 2 popular Toolkits to help you to either start your own school or develop your own strategic plan, step-by-step.

(1). STRATEGIC PLANNING TOOLKIT (#1 BEST SELLER)

Learn how to develop your own Strategic Plan with step-by-step instructions contained in our detailed Workbook and Manual, along with $500 worth of bonus CD’s. It’s all here to help you develop your own plan.

(2). START-A-SCHOOL TOOLKIT (#2 BEST SELLER)

Are you still struggling with starting your school? Four experienced school leaders share how they started their own school from the ground up. You’ll also receive our bonus CD on developing your strategic plan.

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To your success,

Douglas Halladay
President
Halladay Education Group Inc.