rosa parks and clarendon, and we will be continuing our fund raising in the coming years to expand into other schools going forward, so i want to thank you all for the opportunity to talk about this. foreign-language training is so important. we think that is an important thing we can do. thank you very much. >> any questions from the board? >> i just want to add that at the event superintendent garcia and i attended at herbert hoover middle school, he was so surprised when he got a call saying we want to come and see how we can help you. he does not often get appointments from people who want to help in a substantive way what we are doing in the middle school, and i want to

express my appreciation to the japan society. >> i would like to thank you for your support of our students. it is wonderful, and foreign languages such an important goal for all of our students to be bilingual by the time they graduate, so thank you for that. it is wonderful. >> we are honored to be able to do something for the school. >> i want to thank you as well. i had the privilege of going to japan for the japan foundation this last year, so it was a real treat to be able to understand the japanese education system, and it related remind us of the strength and -- it really did remind us of the strength and power we have on our language project as well. >> i would like to also thank you if i ever get a chance to go to japan.

>> wonderful. thank you a very much. but the next item is an update on the strategic initiatives. this was originally presented last week, but we did not have participation of the entire board, and we wanted to save it for the board meeting. >> thank you. we would like to present this presentation to you this evening recognizing the time constraints we have. we are going to move quickly through the slides, but we do want to make sure the commissioners understand we will happily entertain questions as we go. this is going to be a joint presentation by myself and the special assistant to the superintendent, who is also now taking on a new role for us.

she is heading our strategic project implementation and working with strategic implementation with all of our departments in our school district, so we are very excited about her role, so you will see a lot before we are talking about where we are going. she is a renaissance woman, absolutely. the objectives for tonight's presentation are threefold. we want to present a revised framework for managing the implementation and monitoring the impact of our strategic plan, and we want to respond to questions and confirm what our next steps will be. before i go further, i want to recognize a health of dr. terry and ferguson -- help of dr. burgeson. we want to thank her for all of her support.

we want to summarize the board retreat. we would like to start by reviewing the milestones. i also want to point out that we have included definitions in the appendix. we would like to take you back to 2008 and 2009. gooin 2008 the board passed a f-

year strategic plan, and the focus was really engaging communities around what are the indicators of the school sites and the alignment of resources around the strategic plan. you're two, there were nine priorities but were identified by the board and superintendent. the five key performance indicators really serve as dipsticks as to whether or not we are actually moving into the continue em along this route for career and college participants.

the board and the superintendent have identified 13 priorities for the district work, and four were foundational. they were the most priority work the district was undertaking at that point. we also published a progress report where we came to vote board and talk about the realities of implementation, and you might also remember as part of that work, the district committee reviewed the early childhood program as well, and we rolled out strategic progress reports but were developed here in the 10-11 school year, so

where are we now? we are in here for. -- year four. we have partners but we are working with that are listed in your slide, and it is funded by the philanthropic community under the leadership of the school alliance. we think it is significant to our district. one of the goals of the district is to increasingly engage our philanthropic community around the strategic work of the district. we fully recognize with the leadership of the board but we are going to be more under pressure to find additional

funding in our philanthropic community. of as you can see, they have made significant contributions to help us with this initiative. we are in the process of coordinating funding to be able to provide a base of financial support for this initiative and to further develop our capacity in the school district. the theory of action for this initiative is very simple, but it is not simplistic. if the 13 priorities were implemented, we want to further close the achievement gap and meet the goals that continue to be the foundation on top of which we build all of the work we are currently engaged in. we want to achieve double-digit gains for three years for our five key performance indicators, and as i mentioned,

these are the performance indicators the superintendent has outlined in terms of the judging whether or not we are making progress. when we reflect on the accomplishments, there are some things that have happened that have moved the ball further down the court. we have revised 13 interconnected strategic project with goals we shared with the board. we also continued implementation of the 13 priorities within the context of the budget with a focus on the foundational priorities. we established teams. we developed project plans. we created protocols, and we provide a critical path issue to resolution and support, and we have highlighted some of those examples in various projects the staff has been involved with.

accomplishments were captured in the status reports reviewed by the board of education. we also started reviewing project management structures. one of the exciting accomplishments is that we rarely speak about anything in terms of implementation without talking about the strategic projects and who is the manager. how are we managing our outcomes and emma how are we evaluating what is happening? we have identified metrics to evaluate, and those are listed in your slides. we have increased transparency, and i think it is important to note that we have noticed recently the board received some criticism, but we think the more transparent we are with the work we are doing, the more open we are to criticism, because of

better informed people are and know better the process. everything that is important. transparency is going to mean more engagement, and that is one of the goals of the board. we have deepened the understanding of the barriers, including concerns about coherence, cost, scope, and feasibility, and that school improvement grant has been one of the issues the board has consistently spoken about. this is on point with what we are talking about. more importantly, lessons we have learned about what we have been able to implement and aligning resources both physical and human to be able to continue the best practices that we can prove are effective in closing the achievement gap.

it is also important to mention we have been focused on implementation, and we want to expand the focus to include a valuation of our efforts. gewe have heard that conversatin with quality middle schools with a student assignment policy. we want to evaluate what that impact is. we have also developed annual project plans for many priorities, and we want to integrate those plans into one coherent multi-year plan so we can identify what are the dependencies across those projects, and we also want to know how we can maximize resources and avoid unintended consequences of those projects and priorities.

we want a more coherent and integrated approach. we would like to use the new graduation requirements as an example, a very laudable policy the board passed. there are some unintended consequences and issues that need to be addressed. all students at a high school have a six period schedule. those creates challenges. if a student has to be in an english-language lerner, the challenge to fit english language development, and we are being monitored, on top of the requirements for english- language arts. there are not enough periods of the day to accommodate all the requirements for curriculum. that is a consequence we need to

address. students with disabilities, it is a challenge to offer access to electives as well, and what we do not want to do is limit the scope of what a student studies in high school in order to accomplish curriculum at the expense of broad based curriculum that gives students the opportunity to engage in art and electives and all of those things didn't go to school to read and write about. implementation requires a variety of priority areas, and this is just one example of the kind of integrated coherent approach under the strategic initiative as staff is overtaking, so we are looking at an integrated approach and taking into account all the issues we need to address. we also heard very clearly from the board at our retreat at 13

priorities are 13 to many, so we want to reiterate that we have created three strong priority areas this year. we want to create a strong instructional court. we want to implement support and interventions for students across the district, and we want to build a high performing school-focus central office. the board asked very pertinent questions as to what this is going to look like when the rubber meets the road. that has prompted us to further refine the framework for management implementation and monitoring for the impact, so what are some of those questions to the board asked. one of those questions was, it looks like we put all 13 projects in three categories. how will that be a priority

those -- prioritize? the board also ask, what are the dependencies? another question was, what systems and structures will ensure that all staff knows what they are responsible for? we are also asked what are we going to measure. what are the milestones, and also we need to have the flexibility to adjust if we are not achieving the desired outcomes. what priorities should help close the achievement gap? all of these are just a sample of the questions we have heard that have really driven thing conversations of staff.

i would like to turn the presentation over. we will monitor the impact of our strategic plan. >> the evening, commissioners. the next segment of the presentation is going to outline what the overall framework for managing the implementation and monitoring the impact is. i think he has addressed why we are revising the framework, and this is an ongoing improvement, constantly evolving approach to make sure we implement the strategic plan, so we are faring best practices from other districts as well as agencies, so our goal is not to create a magical way of implementing complex projects. in is to implement those

projects and spend the majority of our time maximizing the impact -- monitoring the impact of our work, so i am going to describe how we are going to do that. currently, there are three long- term goals that are outlined, and we recommend maintaining those long term goals. there are annual goals, deliverable, project resources, and lessons learned. lessons learned are all captured in 30 individuals status reports, and the project plans did open a direction that created alignment over values, and we discovered some challenges, so the project plans did not ensure coherence, and we believe a single plan will allow us to go deeper and make connections that will take the work to the next level, so we are moving forward, and we are going to combine the information

into one plan. we are going to distinguish between a long-term goals and objectives, and we are going to use that to drive the annual actions. another area where we are looking to create some change in how we manage the implementation and monitor the impact is that all work is categorized in one of 13 priority areas, and that makes it very difficult to link our work to the long term goals, because some elements might be to fulfil our goal around achievement. another might be a round accountability. we think while we are not coming up with a new set of 13 priority areas, we want to rethink how we view them and maintain a more clearly the long term goals of the strategic plan, so what that

will look like, the next few slides are an illustration of what the board will expect to see when they come back on december 6, so we are proposing we consistently distinguish between long-term goals and our annual implementation of plans, so long term goals are fairly static. those long-term goals are what drives the work and we are going to do each year, so all of our work should be grounded and should be captured and updated annually so it contains specific targets and measures and the budget to meet the long-term objective, and we believe the linking of long-term objectives and goals with daily actions will better position as to have an understanding of what is possible given our current resources and to also evaluate

what additional resources are needed to achieve long-term goals and objectives, because right now it is hard for us to distinguish between are we talking about accomplishing this three years for now, and what are we going to accomplish this year? it is important to be really clear about the actions that are taken each year, given the resources available. we think this approach will provide a practical system for evaluating our performance, and most importantly, a framework for a lining the budget with the priorities, and that is one of our biggest goals, especially as the financial situation get some sleeker and bleaker, so the next situation might seem theoretical, so i will not spend too much time on it. when we come back, this will be populated with long-term goals and objectives. we are not creating anything

new, because they are presented in 13 individual project status reports, but we want to -- one of the board members made the comment that there is the language used in the policy project of days is inconsistent. it is not always clear if we are talking about an of section. we are going to streamline that, and we think having that in one integrated plan will make it easier to have a distinction, so we will still indicate which they belong to. there will be aligned with the long-term goal, and that will allow us to take a strategic approach. it should be clear what the long-term goals are so they can

be implemented. the next slide will bring it back to you. i do not want to downplay in any way the volume of work that will be required to do this. we are going to focus on this work at every operational meeting between now and september 6, and there are three or four of us who are going to be working between those meetings individually with project managers to help develop this implementation plan, so our goal is to create this, and through this process, we believe we will be able to increase our capacity between and among the

projects and also be able to say what is possible this year given the long term objectives that might not be possible in the immediate future, so in terms of the next step, we are going to continue the work to implement and monitor priority areas as well at the same time shifting our approach, and by september 6 not -- by december 6, we hope to have established a long-term objectives and linked them with long-term goals and develop an implementation plan to move the work forward this year and guide the development of next year's budget, and we are also going to a line reporting protocols so we can communicate progress to all stakeholders, and with this approach, there are two areas we are measuring. for the long-term goals, we are going to manage the impact.

throughout the year, we are going to evaluate whether or not we are bringing to fruition the actions we are planning a initially. then there is measuring the impact it is having. that is the conclusion of our presentation to night. it is designed to illustrate the approach we are going to take, how the work is evolving and to foreshadow what we are hoping to share with you. it will be deeper on content. >> thank you. questions with regards 0 what was just presented? >> i want to thank you for the presentation that is related at

the core of our work. one of the chief pleas we have heard some families is that the work be accessible to the family and the stakeholders, so i would urge you to provide a glossary to think about when you make presentations. we want to make sure this information is accessible to our families. thank you. >> you have two pieces you look at in terms of the impact and the analysis of what you are doing, so the question i have is

what will you do -- how would you react if in your annual plan you do an analysis, and you say, we did it, and find out the impact does not reflect any thing you did? in other words, there is a possibility you could at the beginning of the years say here is my plan for this year and have certain results and half way through the year, you have done what you are supposed to do, but the impact is not the impact you want, so what kind of adjustment, what kind of vehicle to you have to make adjustments if you need to do, if that makes sense at all?

>> thank you. i think that is an excellent question, and that is why we want to have more transparency for the staff working on it. we need to have an understanding of how the various pieces of work come together, and measuring whether or not it would have an impact is really critical, because we would need to adjust accordingly, so we would not want to continue taking action or working to implement something that is not going to have the desired outcome, so we would be able to have an understanding and adjust, and it would be a constantly evolving process. >> i wanted to say i assume you're going to have an

evaluation process. >> also to follow up, the board has been very clear with us and with the community. we did not have the luxury to continue because of the historical reason. we have to show they are affected a barrel for achievement gap towards our goal, and our practices are aligned with what we have identified as the focus on the district, so part of what is going to happen is some programs and some things we have done for a long time for a good reason are going to cease to be the russian and we're going to be funding priorities of the district -- >>