Board of Education to Meet Tomorrow

The Stephens County Board of Education is holding its regularly scheduled meeting tomorrow at 5:30 p.m.

On the agenda includes a financial report of the June budget as well as SPLOST activity and approval of a new strategic plan for the school system.

At their work session last week, Deputy Superintendent Terri Powers explained the strategic plan, saying that the plan has been worked on since January 2016. Powers said a lot of things have changed since the previous strategic planning process and it needed updating, including a new mission statement, vision and goals.

Powers said the process for this plan has been collaborative with the community, including feedback from parents, students, faculty and staff and others.

The mission, vision and core values involved in this proposed plan include goal statements that allow individual students to find what their skill set is.

“As we talked with stakeholders, there was a big desire for students to be able to go through their school process and have them leave school with some direction of what they’re good at, what they want to do and how to get there,” said Powers. “We want to promote college and career readiness for all students. We need that solid academic foundation to be able to go out and pursue a career and we also need to empower them to achieve that personal success by understanding what it is they’re good at.”

Powers said there are three goal areas.

“We have three goal areas, the college and career readiness, demonstrating a commitment to excellence- and that ties a lot to our mission, vision and core values and really using those to help us determine what we’re going to spend our money and resources on in our schools, and the last one is involving families and community and business partners to provide unwavering support aimed at inspiring students to achieve their personal best.”

Powers also mentioned that many businesses in the community expressed the importance that students have soft skills for the work force and they want to include that in the plan as well.

This is a three year plan and if approved, will be implemented beginning this year.

The meeting is tomorrow at the board office and is open to the public.