STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS OVERVIEW
As the district emerged from the pandemic and prepared for a transition of leadership, it became apparent to the Board that it would be well served to create a framework to define what it means to be appropriately prepared for life, learning, and work beyond school and to use that as a filter to screen for and hire a new superintendent. This would allow the Board and the Branford community to understand how the qualities of prospective candidates for this critical position are aligned with the district’s vision of the future. Although always challenging to predict, it is now known with certainty from research and experience that 21st century learners will need to develop a sophisticated set of skills and foundational personal dispositions to ensure they can navigate the uncertain challenges they will encounter. To this end, the district committed to a data-based, strategic coherence review of the school system’s capacity to adjust to this new reality. Aligned with this outcome, the process of Strategic Coherence planning was created and pioneered by the selected consultant, Jonathan Costa, from EdAdvance in Litchfield, Connecticut. Mr. Costa attended the January 26th, 2022 meeting of the Branford Board of Education and presented the rationale and process that would lead the district to a coherence planning outcome. At this session, the Board was able to preview the key concepts involved in the process and to ask questions about the alignment of the proposed process with the work, most notably the high school’s Global Learning Competencies, being done in the district. At the end of this session, the Board endorsed the plan with a promised outcome of a framework for a more coherent system of schools, all focused on ensuring student success and preparedness for life, learning, and work beyond school. Unlike traditional strategic planning processes that encourage a diffusion of improvement energy and resources, Strategic Coherence Planning uses a data-based, backwards design to focus the process on those highest leverage improvement strategies that have demonstrated over time to have the largest influence on student learning and impactful preparation for life, learning. and work success in a digital age. The approved calendar of events was designed to start in the spring of 2022 and culminate by the end of the 2022-2023 school year.
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