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In order to make its goals a reality, the school district needs to have the people, money and physical resources it needs in place.
By Citrus County School District
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2001
This is the sixth and final article submitted by the Citrus County School District to inform the community about the aims of its strategic planning.
This article focuses on the team that is targeting improved allocation of human, financial, and physical resources (Team IB) to ensure that student needs are met. It also focuses on the Comprehensive Measurement Implementation Team (Team 5). This team is responsible for developing ways to communicate how well we are meeting our goals and communicating the progress to the public and our school system.
Team IB has been gathering information about the federal and state funds that come to and are disbursed by the district. During the process, this team decided that the first step was to make sure that all employees were comfortable and knowledgeable about the budgeting process. To that end, this team has developed a survey to identify what people already know about the process and what they want to know.
Team IB has also been gathering information from other districts about their budgeting processes. That information will be analyzed, and the team will make recommendations about improving the budgeting process in Citrus County. The goal is to develop a process that would ensure equitable allocation of resources. The challenge is developing a budget that meets the needs of schools with varying issues having to do with school size, age of building, etc.
The district wants to be publicly accountable for meeting its strategic goals. Therefore, Team 5 has been active in working with the other nine teams to help them identify the measures that will demonstrate progress toward meeting those goals.
This team has been developing an electronic format, Web site and brochure to make sure that our progress is communicated widely. In addition to developing measurements for the strategic aims, Team 5 also will assist other teams in collecting baseline data and ongoing data. In some cases, the data are readily available; in others, we are developing ways to measure progress. The goal is to ensure we collect consistent data that accurately represent our progress.
Citrus County schools welcome feedback and input into our Strategic Planning efforts. Our goal is to improve the quality of education for the students of the county and produce well-trained graduate prepared for college or the work force.