Running Head: STRATEGIC PLAN ANALYSIS

Strategic Plan Analysis of Findlay Schools:

Planning and Improving For the Future

Catie Lemley

Bowling Green State University

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Introduction of Strategic Plan

Findlay City Schools is a district in Findlay, Ohio. This district is made up of eight

buildings including one 9th-12th building, two 6th-8th building, one 4th-5th building, two 3rd-

5th buildings, one K-5th building, two K-3rd buildings, two K-2nd buildings, one preschool

building and the Findlay Digital Academy. Overall, the school serves approximately 5,500

students. Their mission statement states that they want to have

“a community partnership committed to educational excellence, [to] instill in each

student the knowledge, skills and virtues necessary to be lifelong learners who recognize

their unique talents and purpose and use them in pursuit of their dreams and for service to

a global society. This is accomplished through a passion for knowledge, discovery and

vision shared by students, families, staff and community”.

In another location, the mission statement was shortened to simply state, “educating and

empowering for life” (Findlay).

Findlay City Schools has an updated strategic plan; however, it is a little difficult to find

as there are different versions (from different years) in different locations of the website. The

most updated version is on their current district website and this plan is for the years 2015 to

2020. Within the plan, there are 6 objectives spanning the topics of academics, finance and

facilities, engagement/safe/valued and community partnership. The plan breaks down all of their

objectives by giving a strategy and action steps for each goal. At the end, the district states their

beliefs that helped them to create the goals within the strategic plan (Findlay).

The most noteworthy goals are the goals to have “100% of students graduate on time”

and “100% of graduates will be enrolled in post-secondary or in the workforce within six months
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of their program”. These are important goals to the idea of empowering for life that was stated in

their shortened mission statement. Schools are working towards preparing students for their

future; therefore, schools need to have the end goal in mind when creating their objectives. This

is even one of their seven habits of highly effective people that the school employees are asked

to integrate into their programs, curricula and traditions (habit 2: begin with the end in mind)

(Findlay).

Strategic Plan Alignment with Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills describes what all students should achieve in

order to be prepared for the workplace and life in general. They also explain what support

systems need to be in place in order for the student outcomes to be met. The overall goal of P21

is to align the curriculum taught in schools with the skills students will need to face the rigorous

coursework in continual education and a competitive workforce. Their idea is to achieve this by

incorporating the 3R’s (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic) along with the 4C’s (Creativity,

Communication, Collaboration and Critical Thinking) (Partnership for 21st).

There are multiple parts within Findlay’s strategic plan that addresses the P21 framework

in general by stating that teachers will demonstrate and incorporate the practices set up by the

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The overall goals of P21 is also addressed indirectly as the

plan wants to provide parents with the materials they need to give support to their students

education at home. This helps to create a support system that extends past the school hours and

helps to bridge the gap between parents and school employees. When students know that there is

a strong relationship between their guardians and their educators, they are more likely to see

education as an important part of their life. It is also addressed within their technology strategy to

provide students and teachers with access to technology that is needed to meet the needs of a
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21st century learner. Those are the main goals within the strategic plan that address the P21

initiative, but there is one action step that addresses the 3R’s as it states the district will create

opportunities for additional time for students to concentrate on reading and/or math intervention.

This will be for all students, but will be first addressed for the students that are identified as at

risk (Findlay).

Strategic Plan Alignment with NETS-S

The National Educational Technology Standards for students focus on ensuring that

students will receive an education that is student-centered. The NETS-S have evolved overtime

into a way to encourage transformative learning with technology. These guidelines will help

teachers of any subject area and any student age to engage their students and help their students

take a more active role in their education (ISTE for Students).

The district did not do a great job of aligning their strategic plan with the NETS-S. The

only mention of technology throughout the entire plan is in their finance and facilities objectives.

As previously stated, their technology strategy addresses providing technology to help meet the

needs of the learners in our 21st century society. The action step that goes along with this

strategy is that the director of technology will assess the technology needs within the district on a

regular basis (Findlay).

There are some goals that could relate to the NETS-S, but are not specific or detailed

enough to know for sure. One of these is that there will be ongoing professional development for

teachers in order to ensure that they are using instructional strategies that are considered best

practices. Some of these professional development opportunities could help to incorporate

things like authentic simulations, collaborative technologies to investigate beyond local issues or

communicate complex ideas through a variety of digital objects. However, without more details
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there is no way to tell how much of the technology standards for students are addressed

(Findlay).

Strategic Plan Alignment with NETS-T

Like the National Educational Technology Standards for students, the standards for

teachers are a set of guidelines that define the skills that teachers need in order to successfully

teach students in the current digital age. Through these standards, teachers are not only asked to

have their students use technology, but to also model effective technology use to students and

other educators. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) hope to shed

light onto the importance of technology in preparing students to reach their full potential after

their K-12 careers by having teachers embrace technology through these standards (ISTE for

Teachers).

Once again, these standards are not directly addressed in any of the goals or action plans

except for the one previously stated in the NETS-S and P21 sections. However, in one of the

district’s past priorities list, there are multiple action steps that would fall under this category.

These include designing and implementing assessments through 21st Century technology as well

as provide teachers and students with 21st Century tools (hardware and software). This shows

that the district is going to work towards creating learning environments where teachers can

create digital learning experiences that inspire students and promote digital citizenship. They will

also be able to demonstrate their own technology fluency and contribute to their districts success

by constantly reflecting on their use and taking a leadership role in sharing their findings with

other educators (Findlay).

Transformational Change
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Transformational change in education asks society to move away from an old, out-dated

form of education that was build around the industrial age. Instead, society needs to look towards

an education that focuses on a new age, the information age. Duffy states that “knowledge

work...is a work process where a worker manipulates information or develops and uses

knowledge in the workplace” (2009). In North America, these knowledge workers outnumber all

other types of workers in our workforce (Duffy, 2009). Education needs to change to fit the new

needs of the workforce .

Findlay’s strategic plan does not include much that shows they are on the path of

transformational change. In fact, most of their goals are purely improvements to what their

current system was while updating their plan. Duffy’s article further states that “making system-

wide improvements to current operations is called continuous improvement, and this does not

create transformational change” (2009). The only real change they are looking to bring about is

providing all students with the opportunities to access technology. The district is currently on a

BYOD (bring your own device) system and they are looking to make technology more readily

available, and equitably among students. However, just because technology will be available

does not mean that it will be used in away to transform the current education model (Findlay).

Suggestions for Modifications/Additions

Even though the strategic plan laid out the district's overall goals and steps to take in

order to achieve these goals, the plan should be more detailed. When stating that teachers will

implement the P21, there needs to be details of how this will be achieved, the timeline that it will

take and how to assess if the benchmark has been met. Currently, the statements are very broad

and are open to interpretation of the reader. Any parent or community member could understand

these actions to mean different things, especially if they do not know what all of the terminology
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means such as differentiated instruction or formative assessments. In this case, it might be nice to

include a glossary as they incorporate more educational terms while including more details.

Also, with being more specific about the actions they are hoping to accomplish and the process

in which they will take to achieve them, the plan would better achieve the P21 framework and

the NETS for students and teachers.

Another way to create more correlation between the NETS and P21 framework and the

district's strategic plan is to create more goals using technology. There was only one strategy that

discussed technology and it only stated that it would be accessible to students and that it would

be achieved by the technology department assessing its accessibility. It needs to not only

describe in more detail what they mean by accessible, but also create plans for once it is

accessible. Will there be training for students on how to use the devices? Do teachers have

opportunities to learn how to incorporate these into their departments? Will the technology

include chromebooks or ipads? Will other technology be made available such as document

cameras or 3D printers? Instead of just having one goal and adding details, create more specific

goals and then detail how you will achieve them and by what time the district should be

successfully implementing that goal.

The other improvement that needs to be made is the accessibility of this plan. If you visit

the district's website, you can find the strategic plan from 2005-2010, the strategic plan from

2010-2015 and the strategic plan for 2015-2020. However, they are all in different locations or

use different names like priorities. All of these pieces should be in a central location where

community members can find each updated plan in order to review them and compare them to

previous plans.
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Bibliography

Duffy, F. M. (2009, February). The Need for Systemic Transformational Change in School

Districts (Part 1). Retrieved May 26, 2017 from

http://edhd.bgsu.edu/~sbanist/6320/pdfs/trnsformchangedu.pdf

Findlay City Schools. (2015-2020). Findlay City Schools 2015-2020 Strategic Plan. Findlay,

Ohio: Findlay City Schools

ISTE. (n.d.). ISTE Standards For Students. Retrieved May 27, 2017, from

https://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-students

ISTE. (n.d.). ISTE Standards for Teachers. Retrieved May 27, 2017, from

https://www.iste.org/standards/standards/standards-for-teachers

Partnership for 21st Century Skills, A. (n.d.). Framework for 21st Century Learning. Retrieved

May 27, 2017, from http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework

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Appendix

Findlay City Schools 2005-2010 Strategic Plan- http://www.findlaycityschools.org/strategic.htm

Findlay City Schools 2010-2015 Priorities- http://www.findlaycityschools.org/forms/priorities.pdf

Findlay City Schools 2015-2020 Strategic Plan- http://www.findlaycityschools.org/forms/StrategicPlan.pdf