photo by: Mackenzie Clark

Martha Greenway, of Greenway Strategy Group, updates the Lawrence school board on the district's strategic planning process at the board's Monday, March 25, 2019 meeting.

The Lawrence school district’s first strategic planning process has reached its approximate halfway point, and the school board on Monday heard some of the chief concerns about the draft plan that arose from conversations with stakeholders.

The plan will soon move from broad themes to more specific initiatives and action steps. As that work gets underway, Martha Greenway, of Greenway Strategy Group, shared what her team and district leaders learned from meetings with students at Lawrence and Free State high schools, district staff and administrators. They also held two community meetings on the plan and offered an online survey, hearing from about 360 people in all.

Among the main concerns Greenway mentioned at the school board’s work session were communication, follow-through and equity.

Gathering feedback

Respondents were asked what worked well and what was missing from the plan framework and its five strategic themes: effective and committed employees; guaranteed and cohesive curriculum; student-centered learning; social/emotional support for students; and data-informed decisions.

In the latest draft Greenway presented on Monday, she had tweaked a theme: social/emotional support and safety for students. She said that explicitly adding safety was a key concern for the student groups.

Greenway said she received no negative comments or suggested changes to the plan’s priority student outcomes, which are increasing literacy by third grade and math proficiency by eighth; narrowing achievement gaps between student groups; increasing high school completion; and advancing students’ post-graduation success in college or career.

She said respondents also liked the strategic themes, particularly the focus on student-centered learning and recruiting and retaining teachers.

Communication and follow-through

Greenway said the No. 1 thing people said was that communication needed to be improved, and they felt that was missing because strategic communication isn’t listed specifically as a theme.

“But one of our responses to that is that communication should be an ongoing operational practice that should be excellent,” she said. “It shouldn’t be something that we say ‘This needs special focus to be enhanced or improved,’ and so we know that the administration will continue to review and enhance the communications processes.”

Greenway said it was important to communicate as the plan was being implemented and to ensure follow-through — another point that respondents had emphasized.

To that end, she said her firm would help set objective performance metrics, the board would set targets and the district would provide regular updates to the public about the progress on the outcomes, as well as whether the district is “doing the work that we told you we would do.”

“Your stakeholders are ready to see that the input they have been offering is actually leading to action,” she told the board.

She said data on outcomes would be dis-aggregated to look at effects on different student groups. In an earlier update to the board, for instance, Greenway presented dis-aggregated data that showed student test scores broken down by racial or ethnic group, then also separated by socio-economic status.

‘Anxious for evidence’ on equity

Although the conceptual idea for the strategic plan was that equity would be integrated into each of the themes, it was not visibly spelled out on Greenway’s draft presentation, so the board at its Feb. 25 meeting requested that it be added.

However, Greenway said respondents were “anxious for evidence” and specifics about how equity and diversity would be addressed.

photo by: Mackenzie Clark

Lawrence school board Vice President Melissa Johnson, right, speaks during the board’s Monday, March 25, 2019 meeting. At left is board President Jessica Beeson.

Board Vice President Melissa Johnson shared some concerns she’d heard from some members of the District Equity Leadership Team Advisory (DELTA) and the Equity Advisory Council (EAC) who felt that the equity piece was “just thrown in at the last minute,” and they wanted to see it incorporated within the themes.

Deputy Superintendent Anna Stubblefield said some group members also wanted to have input on the front end of forming the strategic initiatives. Greenway said the teams compiling the initiatives would first compile a report from background research on what other districts have done; Stubblefield suggested that after that report is complete, group members could review it and provide feedback, still early in the process.

Board President Jessica Beeson suggested also circling back once the plan was further along, to allow DELTA and EAC members another opportunity to contribute.

Some other items Greenway said respondents thought were missing from the plan were incorporation of parent and community engagement throughout the themes, support and training for teachers, and smaller class sizes.

Next steps

Greenway said Monday that she had started training strategy teams that will develop specific initiatives within the themes, returning to the board at its May 13 meeting. In June, the board will review outcome performance measures and targets, and “strategic initiative action teams” will develop detailed action plans and budgets for implementation, according to Greenway’s timeline.

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