Strategic Planning For Schools

If it ain't broke, break it, then fix it. Otherwise you may be destined to address tomorrow's problems with yesterday's solutions - Clark Crouch Another summer has come and gone. How do they go by so fast? Ahh, the century old quandry of educators, students, and parents. I hope though that you've come back fully recharged and ready for another memorable school year. I shared both the quote and images to emphasize how critical proactive long-term strategic planning,  action planning, and implementation and monitoring are to the short- and long-term success of a private school. Many schools make the mistake of developing their plan in isolation without any input from their stakeholders nor reflect on trends and data related their school's performance. Their leadership creates a plan in isolation that does not measurably lay-out a plan for improvement nor engage their community in the process, product, implementation, or buy-in. It just becomes another of those plans from the top that gathers dust. Just another one of those plans brought down from the top of the mountain. Furthermore, many schools do not create a supporting annual action plan and operation plan in unison with the goals and objectives developed in the plan to prioritize and guide the implementation and monitoring by board committees and the senior administrations yearly actions. Today's eNewsletter reflects on other elements to support the development and implementation of an effective strategic plan for your school. To your success,  Douglas Halladay President Halladay Education Group P: +1-604-868-0002 | E: info@halladayeducationgroup.com   4316 Arthur Drive, Delta, BC, Canada, V4K 2W8  P.S. Don't forget to go to our secure Online Store to invest in our Strategic Planning or Start-A-School Toolkits. They're affordable and practical.           Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference. The purpose of a strategic plan is to lay out a concise and practical road map to achieve your school's mission and vision -- moving away from being "reactive" -- solving today's problems -- towards being "proactive" - eliminating problems in the future and taking advantage of opportunities now.   Your plan should provide a framework that enables your school to focus and coordinate your resources, work towards common goals, assess and adjust as you move forward, and focus your board's priorities, guide your staff, and inspire your community. The planning process addresses a series of questions that examines assumptions, incorporates information about the present, and anticipates the world in which the school will be working in, determines how you will get there, and allows you to measure and adjust asyou attain your vision. Linking To Effective Governance A school is most effective when your resources are aligned top-to-bottom by a common vision, mission, strategies, goals, and action plans. An effective planning approach should be seamless and provide practical objectives and deliverables that can be implemented and measured to improve the performance of your school, moving you from good to great. It should allow your board to layout the strategic direction of the school and monitor the progress of your plan against school performance, as well as linking your governance model and oversight to your senior administration annual operational plan. This allows your school to Identify areas of operation needing consideration now and using it as a springboard to strengthen performance in the future; Identify and reach consensus on issues before they become a crisis (e.g., finance, funding, enrollment, marketing, HR, academic programs, student performance, facilities, educational program, governance); Articulate a uniform, shared vision, providing a clearer focus, producing efficiency, participation, and ownership by your stakeholders; Allocate resources to opportunities and improve finances and projections; Build trust, respect, team-work, and communication amongst all stakeholders; Create a framework to guide decision making and ensure that members are working towards the same goals, even if the environment around the school changes; Gain credibility and identify critical projects to focus your resources; Inspire your community to invest in your goals through focused fundraising campaigns; Ensure that board members understand their roles, responsibilities, and board-wide priorities within their committee structure; and Monitor performance and provide benchmarks from which progress can be measured within your board and senior administration. The diagram below illustrates how the pieces come together for your board to develop, implement, and monitor your school's plan. You can see that your five-year planing document should be used annually by your board to determine your yearly priorities and then have your senior administration break-down how they plan to measurably implement the priorities, encompassed within their own evaluation process. Your board committees would then monitor the implementation and report back to the board any action items. This puts all key players on the same page.    HEG's Planning Approach HEG's planning approach supports your board and senior administration in the development and implementation of your plan. Our approach typically encompasses a progression of stages over a five to seven month time frame with the development of your strategic plan and action plan for implementation in the coming school year. This is achieved through the following steps that are customized for your school:   Provided is a link to a recent strategic plan HEG developed. Click on the link to open a downloadable copy of their strategic plan for Forest Lake Education Center Strategic Plan. HEG's President has been involved in the development of a variety of strategic plans for a number of schools types (International, US, Canadian, IBO, Faith-Based, Public) globally and can lead the development of your school's strategic plan this coming school year..   Next Step If you would like to find out more about how we could help your board develop your school's strategic plan or advise on the review and implementation of your current plan, please contact HEG to find out more by sending an email to info@halladayeducationgroup.com or calling directly at +1-604-868-0002.