Twin Falls School District Planning
Twin Falls School District is building toward the future with careful planning
carried out by dedicated staff and involved community members.

Twin Falls Public Schools
Strategic Planning for
2000 and Beyond

• increase accountability for student learning and achievement


• establish a rigorous curriculum based on clearly stated learning standards
  
• expand learning opportunities to better meet the educational needs of all students
  
• improve communication with the community and employees
  
• involve parents and the community in district activities and decision making
  
• ensure a safe, secure and caring learning environment
  
• reinforce the citizenship skills necessary to function as a contributing member of society

In order to accomplish the objectives outlined in this document, issues related to time will need to be addressed. Discussions will need to include time spent on instruction, contact time with students, the length of the school day and year, and the efficient and effective use of teacher time. These discussions will be embedded throughout our work with one another in implementing this strategic plan.

• Basing District goals, building improvement plans, and teacher instructional practices on student academic achievement as reflected by various sources of data.



• Recognizing effective teachers and administrators, who ensure the highest levels of success for their students. Accomplished teachers and administrators should be acknowledged, rewarded, and used as mentors for others.



• Refining the supervision, evaluation and monitoring process to instill accountability for administrative, teaching, and support staff in providing a quality education for all students.



• Providing district inservice training, peer coaching, mentoring, goal setting, and an effective evaluation process to furnish teachers and administrators with the assistance needed to be effective.



• Filling staff vacancies with candidates who best reflect the district's mission and objectives. When appropriate, parents and community representatives will continue to be included in the hiring process for building administrators.



• Improving the reporting system to show areas of academic strength and areas for improvement as related to district learning standards. This will allow students and parents the opportunity to become more involved in ensuring student learning.
  
  
• Promoting parental accountability in terms of ensuring students arrive at school on time, have regular attendance, supporting appropriate school behavior, and completing school and homework on time.
  
  
• Fostering student accountability by developing literacy standards or proficiency levels students must obtain in order to receive a standard diploma from the Twin Falls School District.
  

Curriculum
Providing students with a rigorous curriculum that focuses on the "basics" at an early age is of primary concern in the Twin Falls School District. Through a coordinated and articulated curriculum, the district can ensure student competency in core subject areas, thus providing students with a foundation of knowledge from which they may transition into any vocation they choose.

With the assistance of staff and parents, and the approval of the Board of Trustees, the Twin Falls School District will continue to develop a rigorous curriculum with clearly defined competency or "literacy" standards in the core subject areas of math, language arts, science, and social studies for each grade level. To assess student academic achievement in these areas, the district will continue to develop and revise summative assessments, which test student proficiency related to these standards.

• Developing a curriculum that is aligned to ensure that a core body of knowledge is taught consistently in every grade level across the district. By establishing a set of literacy standards, the district can ensure that the standards required for students in one building will apply to students in all buildings.
  
  
• Creating a K-12 curriculum that defines the skills needed for success at the highest levels of proficiency. Core knowledge obtained at each grade level becomes the building block for success at each subsequent level.
  
  
• Establishing a primary curriculum that focuses on the "basics" needed to ensure reading and math skills by end of the third grade.
  
  
• Instituting and continuing to refine a rigorous curriculum which ensures students exiting the Twin Falls School District are able to assess and solve complex problems, communicate clearly in both written and oral forms, are academically prepared to achieve success in higher education or in advanced training programs, can recognize and produce quality work, and are prepared to be responsible contributors to society.
  
  
• Administering tests to measure student learning and providing expanded opportunities for students to reach acceptable levels of achievement.
  
  
• Utilizing technology instruction to ensure computer competency and to provide students with the requisite skills necessary to employ technology as a tool for increased learning and achievement.
  
  
• Reinforcing in students the necessary citizenship skills to be responsible, contributing members of society.
  

Expanded Educational Opportunities
Serving an increasingly diverse student population is a challenge the Twin Falls School District will continue to face. To achieve the district's mission of providing a quality education necessary for students to be successful in life, the district must strive to provide students with increased learning opportunities that meet their individual needs.

The Twin Falls School District will provide expanded learning opportunities to better meet the needs of students pursuing "academic" and "vocational/technical" programs, will develop intervention programs to assist students in need of more time on-task to obtain critical skills, and will continue to focus on ways to meet the needs of students in programs such as non-English or limited-English speaking students, special education students, or gifted and talented students. Additionally, the district will promote a caring school climate that is conducive to meeting the needs of a diverse student population and one that provides a smoother transition from one grade level to the next.

• Eliminating barriers to learning where they exist.
  
  
• Examining the critical transition periods from the sixth to seventh grade and from the ninth to tenth grade where students seem to have greater difficulties in academic achievement. Intervention strategies will be developed to assist students in transitioning from one level to the next and in maintaining academic achievement.
  
  
• Providing students at-risk of failure with immediate assistance in obtaining key concepts necessary to advance to higher levels of skill and understanding.
  
  
• Expanding the curriculum to include more educational experiences which challenge accelerated students. Fostering a desire for students to expand their level of knowledge and provide avenues for them to excel.
• Expanding career counseling options for secondary students.
  
  
• Expanding the cooperative educational partnership between the District and CSI by eliminating access barriers and allowing students to dually enroll in academic programs offered at both institutions.
  
  
• Increasing student access to curricular offerings in vocational/technical programs through a partnership with the College of Southern Idaho and the business community.
  
  
• Expanding opportunities for parents and students to interact with one another in a school setting. Such opportunities may include cultural activities, learning centers, recreational/entertainment activities, etc.
  

• Producing printed materials to inform the community about various aspects of the district. Such material may include a district overview for new students and staff; information on district academic standards; school readiness information for parents preparing students to enter kindergarten; data on the district's enhanced reporting system; and an overview of district finances.



• Providing key information to non-English speaking parents translated into other key languages to serve large populations of non-English speaking families. Additionally, finding avenues which allow under-served families to participate in district activities and decision making.



• Developing and maintaining a district Internet web page containing updated information about district activities and links to individual school home pages. To facilitate communication with district staff, a directory containing the work phone extensions and e-mail addresses for all district employees will be included within the web pages.



• Publicizing involvement opportunities for parents and community such as PTA/PTO, classroom volunteers, school improvement committees, and advisory committees.



• Continuing to forge strong partnerships with the business community in order to provide students with multiple opportunities to obtain a well-rounded education connected to the world they will encounter when they leave our institution.



• Using roundtables, steering committees, and advisory boards to involve parents, employees, and the community in district strategic planning and decision-making activities. Local school districts need local input and control.



• Developing a network of community resource agencies to support students and families with special needs that cannot be accommodated by the district.

Long-range facility objectives include, in part:

• Scheduling annual building upgrades and repairs, as warranted, to ensure optimum building performance and a safe environment.
  
  
• Continuing to upgrade heating/cooling systems in schools.
  
  
• Continuing the conversion of school irrigation systems from city services to well irrigation systems, thus ensuring a consistent, cost effective water supply.
  
  
• Monitoring enrollment trends and community growth to forecast additional facility needs (i.e. additional high school, vocational/technical school, etc.)
  
  
• Redistributing student populations at elementary and junior high schools, when needed, to ensure optimum facility usage and desired class sizes.
  
  
• Establishing school boundary gray zones that would indicate to patrons the residential areas that could possibly be shifted from one school zone to another based on student populations.
  
  
• Expanding opportunities for the public to access school facilities for civic, recreation, and continuing education activities.
  

II. Participants
The first step in selecting participants was to determine the preferred meeting format. The administrators and staff at each school were given the option of participating in a single school session (participants from only one school) or participating in a blended session (including representatives from several schools). Two elementary schools, Lincoln and Oregon Trail, requested single school sessions. All other schools requested blended sessions.

To ensure that a broad range of employee perspectives was represented during each roundtable session, schools were given sign-up sheets specifying the number of certified staff (administrators/teachers) and classified (non-teaching) staff that would be represented in each session. The distribution of certified to classified employees in each meeting was roughly two-thirds certified and one-third classified.

Individual participants for each session were recruited by members of the district's Quality School Committee (QSC) Communication Subcommittee and building administrators. Recruited participants were sent a pre-meeting packet of information containing an introductory letter explaining the purpose of the meeting, an executive summary of the 1990 Strategic Plan, a copy of the Quality School Committee's Super Seven Goals, and QSC's 1997-98 goals. Each participant was asked to review these materials prior to the roundtable sessions, so everyone would come to the table with a common sense of purpose and direction.

A total of 55 employees participated in the five roundtable-sessions. The smallest session, held at Lincoln Elementary School, consisted of 10 participants. The largest session, a blended session of five elementary schools and one junior high school, had 15 participants.

III. Meeting Process

Five employee roundtable sessions were held: January 13, 15, 27, 29 and February 5, 1998. Each session lasted for one and one-half hours and followed the same general agenda:

1. Welcome and Introduction



2. Brief history of the first strategic planning process



3. Definition of, and rationale for, updating the current strategic plan



4. Participants were asked to individually identify 5 district strengths and 5 district opportunities for improvement. Strengths were defined as areas where the staff felt the district was doing exceptionally well and should continue improvement activities. Opportunities for improvement were defined as those areas where the staff felt the district was weak and should set improvement goals.



5. Once the individual lists were completed, participants worked in small groups to collapse like ideas into a group list of strengths and weaknesses.



6. Individuals who felt strongly about an issue that was not a collective group concern were invited to include the specific issue on the bottom of the small-group list.



7. Similar ideas between the small groups were then collapsed to reach whole-group consensus regarding the major issues of support or concern.



8. Each participant then ranked his or her top three areas of concern by placing a mark next to the opportunities for improvement as identified by the entire group.



9. Participants were informed of the remaining steps in the process: results from all five employee roundtable sessions would be compiled; the report would be shared with participants; and results from the employee roundtable discussions and the community roundtable discussions would be combined to form the basis of the updated strategic plan.



10. Participants were given the option of holding another roundtable session to further discuss any issues addressed in this session or to discuss other issues.

To develop a common sense of direction, the top issues of both support (strengths) and concern (opportunities) expressed in each roundtable session were later broken into four general categories. These categories included: Expanded Learning Opportunities/Meeting Individual Student Needs, Accountability, School/Community Relations and Communication, Professional Orientation/Staff Development.

IV. Summary Report

Attachment C

Phase three in the Twin Falls School District's efforts to update the 1990 Strategic Plan was designed to join together participants from both the community and employee roundtables to review Drafts I and II in the updated strategic plan. The joint sessions were facilitated by district administrators Dr. Mary Ann Ranells, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, and Linda Baird, Director of School/Community Relations.

II. Participants

Every individual who participated in either a community or employee roundtable session was invited to review Draft I of the strategic plan. Each participant was sent an advance copy of Draft I of the strategic plan and asked to review it prior to the meeting and come prepared to discuss the document. Participants unable to attend the meeting were invited to submit comments over the phone, via e-mail, or in writing through the mail.

Of the 156 individuals invited to the first review meeting on October 28, 1998, 17 attended. Eight of those were community members representing business, parents, private schools, senior citizens, religious community, and nonprofit organizations. Nine participants were district employees representing administrators, teachers, and classified personnel. Three invited participants phoned in their comments as they were unable to attend the meeting. Three others who could not attend the first meeting asked to be included in any follow-up discussions.

Participants from the first review meeting, and those who asked to be included in future sessions, expressed an interest in coming together one final time to review recommended changes in the first draft. Thus, they were invited to attend a final review session on December 1, 1998. Again, participants unable to attend the meeting were invited to submit comments over the phone, via e-mail, or in writing through the mail.

Of the 20 participants invited to the December 1, meeting, seven attended and two e-mailed their comments to Linda Baird. Critique of the second draft came from parent and business representatives, school administrators, teachers, and classified district employees.

III. Meeting Process

During the October 28, 1998 meeting, participants were divided into small groups comprised of both district and community representatives. Each group was first asked to critique Draft I in terms of content and clarity. Groups worked together to ensure the content was clear, specific, reasonable, and powerful.

Participants were then provided an evaluation sheet and asked to individually rank each section of the plan according to their personal level of support for the section. A ranking of A1" meant the participant could not support the section and a ranking of A5" meant the participant strongly supported the section. Individual rankings were averaged to determine a group ranking. Groups were then asked to give specific recommendations for improvement for any section that averaged a ranking of A3" (neutral support) or below.

As the final activity in this meeting, small groups were asked to report to the larger whole their recommendations for improvement. In concluding the two-hour meeting, participants were given the option of making comments on the next revised draft via mail or of joining together for another work session. Participants elected to hold one more work session.

After the October 28, meeting, Linda Baird, Dr. Mary Ann Ranells, and elementary principal Kay Jones worked to incorporate all of the comments received from the meeting participants into Draft II of the strategic plan.

During the December 1, 1998 final strategic planning work session, all participants worked together to critique changes made in the plan from Draft I to Draft II. In a one-hour meeting, participants recommended minor modifications to Draft II of the plan.

In concluding the meeting, participants were informed of the next steps in the formalization process of the plan. These steps are:

• December 2, 1998
  Incorporate recommendations into final plan



• December 8, 1998
  Present the final plan to the district Quality School Committee as an information item and ask them to review the document in terms of fatal flaws or glaring omissions.



• December 8, 1998
  Present the final plan to the Board of Trustees as an information item.



• February 1999
  Publish the final plan in the district's Communiqué, a community newsletter that is distributed to 14,000 households in the district



• February 23, 1999
  Ask the Quality School Committee for formal endorsement of the plan.



• March 9, 1999
  Ask the Board of Trustees for formal approval of the plan

Once board approval is received, it will then be the responsibility of the superintendent to direct his staff to detail annual action plans to accomplish the objectives set forth in the plan.

IV. Summary Report

For a complete copy of the Twin Falls School District Community or Employee Roundtable Summary Reports, please contact:

Linda Baird
School/Community Relations Director
201 Main Ave. W.
Twin Falls, ID 83301
208-733-6900