Beginning in January 2023, we commenced Phase II of our strategic planning and utilized members of four subcommittees to dive deeply into focus areas identified by the community feedback gathered in Phase I. The subcommittees were made up of students, parents/guardians, community members, and staff.

The role of each subcommittee was to explicate their assigned focus area through deep exploration, determining and recommending action steps to move the district forward in their focus area, developing “success” benchmarks, creating a timeline for implementation, and identifying estimated resources (time and budget).

Our subcommittees met between 5-8 times from mid-January to late March. In addition, subcommittee members also spent about 6-8 hours doing extensive research, writing collaboratively with their subcommittee peers to develop their final focus-area recommendation(s).

BQI’s analysis of responses from Phase I identified four key areas of focus to explore in depth in Phase II. These four focus areas were considered to have the most urgency and the most potential impact on the strategic plan. Each focus area combines a number of related threads within the data collected under more generalized headings.

The four focus areas were:
• Culture
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Facilities
• Teaching and Learning.

Our work in Phase II relied heavily on members of the four subcommittees, each assigned one of these focus areas to study.                                                                        
It’s important to note that while each of these areas is clearly separate from one another, each theme is also a thread within all of the others.

For example, facilities discussions did not ignore issues of equity, culture, and classroom practice. Similarly, teaching-and-learning conversations were considered with an equity lens, as well as an understanding of school cultures, etc.