Strategic Planning 2026

South Orange & Maplewood School District had 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.

At the time, rather than adapting an old educational system designed for the industrial era to be more relevant to the previous decade, the Strategic Plan aimed to create a new system that would prepare students for the future we had yet to imagine. This process was framed as a collaborative effort to ensure the plan ultimately reflects our community's values and our students' needs.

The Strategic Planning process was outlined in multiple phases, and we sought to ensure that a wide variety of perspectives were included at every step.

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.

Action Plan Strategies

• 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, district administration began to carry out the next steps in that Strategic Planning process:

• Prioritized plans by incorporating input from the Board and the community.
• Developed and aligned the Year 1 Implementation Schedule with the 2017-2018 budget, ensuring that first-year initiatives were fully embedded. Both the 2016-2017 budget and the Year 1 Implementation Plan were adopted by the Board of Education in March 2016.
• Established a 3 Year Implementation Schedule that was incorporated into annual district goals, integrated with other priorities, and formally adopted by the Board of Education as part of the district goal setting process.

Related Files and Documents