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By Citrus County School District
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 21, 2001
Editor's Note: The Citrus County School District, in an effort to inform the public of plans and progress with Strategic Planning, has released six articles outlining the processes. The Citrus Times will run them during the next few weeks. Here is the first of the series.
Strategic Planning is alive and well in Citrus County schools. In the fall of 1998, the school district asked the community, employees and students for their ideas for the future of our school system.
Nearly 3,000 people provided more than 25,000 comments. Using this information, 63 community members, parents, students and school employees met to determine the future direction for our district.
They established a mission statement and 10 strategic aims as targets for the next three years. The committee targeted student performance, safety, attendance, technology for instruction and administration, high performing employees, career goals for students, effective use of resources, school and community relationships, and the development of a comprehensive measurement system.
The comprehensive measurement system is a set of measures that we will use for accountability to the community and for us to judge our progress. Since that time, Citrus County employees have been hard at work.
During the first year, 10 Action Plan committees took each of those aims and developed two action plans to make sure the aims are met. Then Implementation Teams identified how they were going to measure whether or not we were successful with the action plans. The comprehensive measurement system committee worked with the others to determine 12 measures of effectiveness for public accountability.
Currently, teams are beginning their work toward meeting their goals, identifying data and collecting data toward meeting their goals. As a result of the planning process, the school district has made perhaps its most significant change in the way we do business.
Chairpersons from each of the 10 committees meet twice monthly with the superintendent to discuss issues and make decisions regarding the district. Another important function of this committee is to evaluate the progress of the strategic plan and coordinate activities that affect several committees.
We look forward to sharing this information with you.