Stakeholders, citizens and staff members from all of our communities are cordially invited to be a part of the Old Rochester Regional & Massachusetts Superintendency #55 School Districts Strategic Plan development which will take place in mid-September. Your input is very important as the collective perspectives of our school communities will set the course for the direction and vision of our schools for the next five years. We have hired John Kennedy to help guide our process. Kennedy is from the New England School Development Council (NESDEC) whose organizational purpose is to help school districts plan, research and allocate resources strategically to meet student needs.
Community members can elect to be a part of the Strategic planning process by emailing Diana Russo at drusso@orr.mec.edu.
The process that the districts will follow in developing the plan is to first gather information about the schools from September 19 focus groups with student leaders and from senior citizens at each of our Councils for Aging, as well as from multiple data sources. A Strategic Planning Workshop will convene Thursday evening September 19 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm in the ORR cafeteria. At this workshop, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee will meet and our NESDEC consultant will present a profile of the present state of the districts. Lastly, those electing to be part of this process will have the opportunity to take part in a participant-chosen focus group on September 21. Steering Committee members will be a part of focus groups. The focus group times are as follows:
Focus Group Sessions: 8:30-9:30 am, Focus Group Session #1 and Focus Group Session #2; 9:45-10:45 am, Focus Group Session #3 and Focus Group Session #4; 11:00 am-12:00 pm, Focus Group Session #5 and Focus Group Session #6.
A NESDEC Team consultant will facilitate each of the Focus Group Sessions. During each Session, stakeholders will be asked to respond to the following prompts:
1. As the Old Rochester Regional & Massachusetts Superintendency #55 School Districts move forward over the next five years, what do you feel are the key elements/components that will need to be in place in order for the districts to continue to provide a high quality educational program?
2. What are the major challenges that you believe the districts will face as it strives to attain these goals?
On Saturday afternoon after the focus groups have been completed, the results of these groups as well as the input from senior citizens and students will be recorded and utilized by the Steering Committee when developing four to five district strategic planning goals.
The School Administrative team will complete the detail work of developing the strategies to implement the 4 to 5 goals, outline who is responsible for implementation, as well as the implementation timeline and fiscal impact of each goal.
If you have questions about this process, please call Dr. Elise Frangos, Assistant Superintendent, at 508-758-2772, ext. 1963.