South Orange Maplewood School District has worked to create a context for administrators, teaching staff, families and students to think more broadly about the purpose and process of education, including by sharing the work of Tony Wagner in Creating Innovators and by engaging the full community in a dialogue about the future of our schools.

Rather than trying to adapt an old educational system designed for the needs of the industrial era to be more relevant to the needs of today, the goal of the Strategic Plan is to create a new system which prepares students for a future that we have yet to imagine. This process will be a collaborative effort so that the plan ultimately represents the values of our community and the needs of our students.

The Strategic Planning process has multiple phases, and we are striving to ensure that a wide variety of perspectives are included in every step along the way.

Action Planning teams were formed for each of the 9 strategies developed by the Strategic Direction Committee. The teams included educators, parents, students, and other community members who volunteered to share their passion for innovative education and commitment to the very best for SOMSD. The teams met for 9 months to develop Action Plans – implementation steps for each strategy consisting of reasonable pieces of work that move us towards the mission.

Full Action Plans

• Strategy 1 - Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment
• Strategy 2 - Multiple Student Supports
• Strategy 3 - Student Engagement
• Strategy 4 - Professional Development
• Strategy 5 - Cultural Competency
• Strategy 6 - Partnering with Families
• Strategy 7 - Facilities, Administrative Structures & Scheduling
• Strategy 8 - Community Expertise & External Resources
• Strategy 9 - Communications

Once accepted by the Board of Education, Administration will begin to carry out the next steps in the Strategic Planning Process:

• Prioritize Plans, incorporating input from Board and community
• Create an Implementation Schedule for Year 1, and align to the 2017-2018 budget. This budget will incorporate these first year initiatives. Both the 2016-2017 budget and the Year 1 Implementation Plan will be adopted by the Board of Education in March 2016.
• Create a 3 Year Implementation Schedule, which will be incorporated into annual district goals, along with other priorities, and adopted by the Board of Education as part of the district goal setting process.

Related Files and Documents