The school year is over halfway completed and, in a few months, school will be out for the summer. Kids and their teachers will get a much-needed break, schools will be closed for cleaning and updating, and–at this rate–the Newberg school board will still not have a strategic plan in place to guide its decisions for the 2022-23 school year..
That’s right, Newberg schools have no publicly stated goals for the 2022-23 year. The superintendent has no publicly stated goals. The district has yet to agree on any publicly stated goals. The 2023-24 budget is about to be set without any goals or community feedback, nor without a strategic plan to guide decision-making.
This is not how a functioning board should act.
The Oregon Department of Education provides tools for districts to implement a Continuous Improvement Process. According to their website, school districts need to strategically plan to “improve outcomes for students.” They suggest that such a plan will help
- Determine what is working and what needs to change;
- Establish a process to engage stakeholders to effect change;
- Leverage effective practices to implement a plan;
- Use data to monitor and make timely adjustments to improve outcomes.
This improvement process was used by boards in the years immediately before the 2021 election. With Dr. Joe Morelock at the helm, according to easily-accessible minutes, the Newberg Board of Directors “invited input from staff, students, parents, and community members to develop a new strategic plan. A strategic plan helps to guide the direction and focus the priorities of the district. The Board approved the new strategic plan on January 14, 2019.”
You can see how involved the strategic planning sessions were by looking at the district’s own webpage. Because the district wanted to hear from as many people as possible, there was childcare, interpreters (including Spanish and American Sign Language translators), and accessible documents for those with disabilities.
Four listening sessions were opened to the public, during which people shared their vision for the district; sorted and refined those goals, strategies, and ideas; created action steps; and helped to build the 2018-2021 Strategic Plan.
The plan, created with genuine input from a wide cross-section of the community, helped inform the school board’s decision-making, budgeting, and policies for subsequent years, providing a purpose and direction that was transparent, and which considered all stakeholders in the public school district: students, parents, teachers, community members, and taxpayers.
Not only has the current school board failed to create a strategic plan to guide their activities, they have not been transparent in the plans they have made, and they have not shown interest in hearing from a wide range of stakeholders.
Dr. Steven Phillips announced at the February 14, 2023, board meeting that he is organizing empathy interviews, but it’s not clear who he is interviewing, nor how this will help develop a strategic plan for the school district’s future. In an upcoming post, we will talk about why empathy interviews, while a positive gesture of goodwill, are insufficient for guiding a district this large, and this diverse.
Our concern is not about the lack of progressives on the board.
It’s the lack of transparency.
It’s the lack of accountability.
It’s the lack of a strategic plan.
Newberg Neighbors for a Better Community 