For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cobb County School District has proposed an updated strategic plan.
The 2023-28 update, presented Thursday at a Cobb Board of Education work session, outlines a set of nine skills for high school graduates to master, broken into three categories.
The plan also summarizes seven support areas to and designated four “board goals” with the aim of helping students reach those objectives.
“It’s a road map,” Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said, one that “gives everyone a template of where you hope to be and how you try to get there.”
(You can watch a replay of the discussion by clicking here; it starts around the 57-minute mark.)
The last updated strategic plan went through the 2018-19 school year, right before the pandemic was declared, and as a 2020-25 plan was in the works.
The latter is essentially the plan that was presented to board members on Thursday; they will be asked to approve it in February.
John Floresta, the district’s Chief Strategy and Accountability and Officer, said the 2023-28 plan is the result of ongoing conversations and feedback from teachers, principals, parents and business leaders for more than a year.
“We have defined what a Cobb graduate should be and what they should be able to do,” he said in response to a question from board member Becky Sayler about how the public was invited to participate.
The proposed plan includes the following competencies for students receiving a diploma:
- Scholar: Math and science content knowledge; Language arts and social studies content knowledge; Personal finance content knowledge
- Leader: Communication skills; Entrepreneurial skills; Self-direction and personal responsibility
- Citizen: Critical thinking skills; Collaboration skills; Community Awareness
The “profiles of support,” as Ragsdale termed it, are academics, technology, community, culture of care, safety, communication and finance.
In addition, four board goals were outlined, and they also are the same as what had been proposed for the 2020-25 plan:
- “Vary learning experience to increase success in college and career pathways:”
- “Differentiate resources for students based on needs;”
- “Recruit, hire, support and retain employees for the highest level of excellence;”
- “Develop stakeholder involvement to promote student success.”
Here’s an overview of the strategic plan that district officials said will include more details in the coming weeks.
The 2020-25 preview included some more details on what had been the district’s CobbMetrics assessment site, but that has been taken down.
(CobbMetrics is a pilot testing program that the district had been using to apply for a waiver from state Milestones requirement, but that request was rejected in the fall of 2019, just as the proposed 2020-25 strategic plan was taking shape. CobbMetrics included shorter, continuous and individualized tests designed to gauge student progress in real time and give teachers the tools to adapt to what they see as learning needs.)
The strategic plan is an overview that doesn’t include Cobb Metrics or other data-driven accountability measures, or school-level plans.
Board member Randy Scamihorn asked how the strategic plan blends in to the district’s “vision,” and Floresta said that “it makes your goals real. It’s how we do what we can do.”
“It is the top-tier plan,” Ragsdale added.
There were no references to how COVID-related relief funds have been utilized, including issues over how to address learning loss.
School board member Tre’ Hutchins said that while the board goals “are solid,” he was interested “post-COVID in looking at more support” for such things as student mental health and related recovery issues.
Some critics of the district, including the Watching the Funds-Cobb citizen watchdog group, have said that “a copy and paste of the 2019 strategic plan isn’t going to cut in 2023 and beyond.”
New board member Nichelle Davis asked, “What’s the link between our goals and data? How are we gauging our progress?”
Floresta referenced the current state educational accountability measures, including Georgia Milestones and the CCRPI (College and Career Ready Performance Index).
Ragsdale said that “we have to adapt to what students need” on an individualized basis to the extent that the district could essentially have “108,000 IEPs.”
Those figures are the district’s current enrollment, and the latter reference is an Individual Education Plan mostly centered now on special-needs students.
When board member David Banks of East Cobb asked why parents and the public should care about a strategic plan, Floresta said “so they’ll know what their children will be expected” to master and that educators “are making decisions that you all want.”
Banks said “are we preparing [students] for what they’re going to be expecting in the next 12-13 years? . . . I’m worried about preparing students for what’s coming.”
Floresta said that “we can tell you the skill sets in this plan are relevant, no matter how the world changes.”
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