2021 Strategic Plan

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The Waterford School District (WSD) Board of Education and Administration is re-launching the initiative to guide the district through a three to five-year Strategic Plan. This initiative aims to help the district develop new goals and strategies to ensure its students continue to receive an excellent education. The initiative was originally launched in February 2020 with a stakeholder survey and focus group meetings. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the process was paused.

Stakeholder feedback is an essential part of the planning process. The district will utilize the data received early in 2020 combined with new data collected through virtual input sessions and a new survey. Community members, parents, students, teachers, and all district staff members will have the opportunity to share their opinions on the district’s strengths, opportunities for improvement, and barriers for implementation, as well as their vision for the district.

The virtual sessions will be held on April 21, 26 and 27; details for those sessions will be available on the district’s website at https://www.waterford.k12.mi.us/community/resources/2021-strategic-plan/. For those that prefer, the stakeholder survey is open April 12 through May 3 and can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WaterfordSP2021.

Stakeholder input and essential district data provide the basis for the district to choose approximately five priority goals to be implemented over the next three to five years. The benefits of the strategic planning process are many. Most notable are:

It provides integrated, valuable input from the community and staff
It presents a succinct picture of the district’s current status
It sets focused strategic goals that identify target areas to improve student achievement
It clearly delineates the role of the Board of Education and the superintendent/staff in strategic planning
It uses data to set goals and make critical decisions
It helps identify areas to allocate increasingly scarce resources
It aligns Board priorities with school improvement processes

WSD Board of Education President Michael Ristich stated, “Strategic planning is an exciting opportunity for us to gather data, listen to our stakeholders, and collaborate around a common vision. As a Board of Education, we are eager to start the process and push our district forward.”

Debbie Stair, Board Development Manager from the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB), will work with the Waterford School District for the next three months to complete the Strategic Plan. Stair said, “The Waterford School District and MASB have worked together to design a customized process that ensures broad stakeholder involvement and will result in an effective Strategic Plan implementation.”

Take the Stakeholder Survey