A lot can happen in the next five years, but Turlock Unified School District is doing everything in its power to remain both prepared and successful, starting with its recent adoption of the 2015-2019 Strategic Plan.
TUSD began the process towards creating an updated plan in April 2014 by forming a Strategic Planning Committee, which in turn listed seven strategies they felt were vital to the success of the District: communication, conditions of learning, student-centered engagement, student achievement, resources, technology, and safety.
To tackle each strategy, the District formed action teams of parents, teachers, classified employees, administrators and community members. Each team, led by appointed co-chairs, met over the course of six months to brainstorm how best to address the aforementioned strategies.
For communication, the District defined the strategy as the need to “develop and implement reciprocal communication systems, which are consistent across TUSD in order to provide students, families, staff, and community members with essential, relevant, and timely information.”
To achieve this, the respective team advised the District to both establish and maintain a formalized process that will allow for increased communication amongst all stakeholders, enhance communication with local businesses and organizations to cultivate diversified partnerships, and develop and utilize technology-based communication systems to aid the access and dissemination of information.
Another strategy updated by team members addressed the conditions of learning. According to the District, this strategy was defined as the commitment to “ensure all staff has the curriculum, professional development, collaboration time, and support necessary to differentiate instruction and actively engage students in an environment that fosters learning.”
Results cultivated by the corresponding team revolved around providing all staff with Common Core standard aligned and District adopted curriculum, an issue that has challenged some teachers in the District since its transition to Common Core.
Additionally, the team advised the District to make sure that all school sites continue to refine their Professional Learning Community and to provide initial and ongoing professional development and support for all staff.
College and career readiness was the focus of the resources strategy, as the District also formed a team to best delegate how to “provide equitable resources for students, staff, and families.”
To do this, the team recommended that the District establish and maintain a foundation that will allow all students to enhance their academic, social, and vocational development, detail guidelines in order to make sure that fiscal resources are being allocating in the best interest of the District.
The team also advised the district to create a web-based directory that will allow students, staff, and community stakeholders to access local resources, as well as to expand and enhance partnerships between the District and the community, specifically with local colleges, universities, and trade schools.
Now that the updated Strategic Plan has been officially approved by the Board of Trustees, it will soon replace the 2009-2014 Strategic Plan and be made available at turlockusd-ca.schoolloop.com/strategic_plan.
