MAPLEWOOD / SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The majority of the Nov. 21 special meeting of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education was spent presenting the district’s new strategic action plan.
The plan was formed by nine committees — each focused on one strategy — that met for approximately nine months to flesh out the actions necessary to accomplish each strategy.
“It is a very positive and exciting night and we thank all of you here and all of you at home for the good will and the generosity and the time and talents and commitments to our schools that have gone into this process,” board President Elizabeth Baker said, opening the meeting.
Superintendent John Ramos Sr. shared Baker’s enthusiasm, calling the strategic action plan process “organic,” “exciting” and “extensive.”
“This is an evening that we’ve looked forward to for some time,” Ramos said. “I know that we’re all excited to come to this point.”
Ramos said the process began “in earnest” at the education summit in 2015, after which the district continued to collect raw data from events and through the Let’s Talk communication platform, before synthesizing that data.
“It began with a question: How do we best educate students for a future we’ve yet to imagine?” Ramos said.
According to Ramos, the synthesized data pointed to a needed “paradigm shift” in the South Orange-Maplewood School District that would structure programs, services, outreach and communications to meet the needs of students and their families — as opposed to the current state of the district, which works to fit students and families into currently established structures and systems. From there, the district pulled experts and other individuals from across the community to come together over a three-day period to create the nine distinct strategies forming the SOMSD strategic direction, which was adopted by the BOE in February 2016.
“We have something that is in place that speaks to a blueprint for the school district going forward for the next three to five years,” Ramos said.
Nine committees were formed to create an action plan to accomplish each strategy. The committees consisted of community volunteers, including educators, parents, students and others, each with between seven and 13 members. According to Ramos in the presentation, it was important for the district to include students by holding forums and including them in each step of the process. Representatives from each of the nine committees presented their findings and plans at the Nov. 21 meeting.
Strategy 1 focuses on redesigning curriculum, instruction and assessment to support learner-centered environments. According to the report, the first team had five deliverables: involving students in the assessment process; integrating elementary curriculum across the sciences and social studies; creating inquiry-based middle school math classes; piloting mastery-based learning in a coding-infused math curriculum; and establishing consistency in secondary writing.
Strategy 2 focuses on developing multiple supports for students to thrive in a learner-centered environment, including a mentoring program, peer leadership, individualized academic and emotional support, transitional services, restorative practices and guidance in pursuit of their passions. According to the report, the second team had seven deliverables: developing and linking a schoolwide peer mentorship and advisory program for secondary students; developing standardized, districtwide restorative practices; creating high-quality extended-day programming; creating a counseling internship program at the high school; standardizing and strengthening the information and referral system process; incorporating a play and innovation period into elementary and middle school class time; and developing a one-stop hub of services for families.
Strategy 3 focuses on improving student engagement by working with students to redefine their roles as active and engaged contributors to the learning experience in their schools and communities. According to the report, the third team had five deliverables: implementing a pilot “CommUNITY” system within Seth Boyden Elementary School to serve as a model for a future districtwide program; creating and implementing a middle school intramural sports program at Maplewood and South Orange middle schools; creating a three-week extra-session pilot program at CHS in collaboration with students, staff and community members to develop curriculum; implementing a districtwide sustainable social and emotional learning initiative; and creating, distributing and analyzing engagement surveys of all staff, students and parents within the community and implementing changes to increase engagement for all.
Strategy 4 focuses on fostering professional development by providing ongoing, differentiated and relevant professional development to help teachers and administrators to theorize, critique, examine and explore in order to engage every student in a learner-centered environment. According to the report, the fourth team had six deliverables: providing professional development that promotes growth in the area of learner-centered classrooms; creating and utilizing a continuum of exemplary learner-centered teaching; developing vertical curriculum alignment; providing experiential workshops; providing ongoing professional development that is differentiated, job-embedded and responsive; and establishing a performance review process that incorporates feedback from multiple constituents.
Strategy 5 focuses on infusing cultural competency into every aspect of the learning community. According to the report, the fifth team had seven deliverables: providing mandatory and ongoing professional development for all staff in issues relevant to cultural competency; developing protocol for hiring and retention that supports cultural competency objectives; providing students with ongoing, formal and informal opportunities for discussion to raise cultural awareness; expanding learning opportunities outside of the classroom; providing students with access to curriculum that is culturally responsive; developing mechanisms to review district policies and procedures through the lens of cultural competency; and identifying, establishing relationships and collaborating with community and regional organizations to develop and strengthen cultural competency.
Strategy 6 focuses on partnering with families to support student growth. According to the report, the sixth team had four deliverables: expanding the technology platform PowerSchool for the district with up-to-date data; augmenting formal channels of communication related to student growth with multiple informal channels and real-time support; implementing a central welcome and support center; and standardizing communication within schools.
Strategy 7 focuses on scheduling, facilities and administrative structures by reimagining and redesigning all aspects of student scheduling, use of facilities and administrative structures to guarantee alignment with the district’s mission. According to the report, the seventh team had four deliverables: creating a daily and weekly schedule and an annual calendar to allow for intense academic study, experiential learning and community-based activities; configuring learning areas with furniture, tools, equipment and technology to accommodate fluid, learner-centered exploration and cross-disciplinary instruction; creating a plan for district facilities to allow for greater capacity and modern working environments; and creating and communicating structures and processes that allow for multiple pathways for all learners to access a rigorous and relevant education.
Strategy 8 focuses on maximizing community expertise and external resources to provide multiple pathways for student and professional growth and learning. According to the report, the eighth team had four deliverables: creating a brick-and-mortar, student-managed Community Storehouse to provide free, innovative learning materials to teachers and students; developing “SOMSD Experts in Action,” a collective of local adult volunteers to interface with the school community in innovative and meaningful ways that enhance teaching and learning; designing and implementing a districtwide community service learning requirement for students in kindergarten through 11th-grade; and designing an accredited internship program with mentorship for high school seniors.
Strategy 9 focuses on improving communications by engaging in robust, open, ongoing and transparent communications with all students, families, staff and community members to generate understanding, excitement, trust and support of our school community and its transformation. According to the report, this team had four deliverables: creating an interactive communications plan about the strategic planning process and implementation; piloting interactive outreach to secondary school parents and guardians; piloting an aggressive outreach to underrepresented populations, and developing an information portal.
Following the presentation, the BOE members thanked all who served on the committees for their hard work.
“I appreciate everyone’s generosity of their time and their spirit and their expertise,” board member Annemarie Maini, a member of the Strategic Direction Committee, said.
Board member Maureen Jones added: “Your time and effort and the talent that this community has is really to be commended, so thank you for your work on it.”
In addition to requesting that future meetings and forums regarding the action plan be recorded and made available to those not able to be present, board first Vice President Stephanie Lawson-Muhammad praised Ramos for his work creating the plan.
“I want to thank you, Dr. Ramos, because you didn’t just come to our district and hand us a plan,” Lawson-Muhammad said, “you provided the tools and the space to allow us to create our own.”
Board member Donna Smith was excited by the possibilities provided by the action plan, but also saw room for improvement by collaborating between the committees.
“I can see that there are certain things that are going to have to be aligned a little between the different strategies, places where it’s wanting to do the same thing, but with different methods, so some work is going to have to be done,” Smith said.
Board member Beth Daugherty, who also served on the Strategic Direction Committee, agreed, adding that the areas showing overlap are key areas on which the district needs to focus.
“The challenging part is going to be prioritizing what to do first,” Daugherty said, adding that she will be listening from the audience for most of that process as her term on the board will end with the end of the year.
While board member Johanna Wright applauded the work done by the committees, she expressed concern that the report did not address access and equity, the arts, music, the libraries and the disparities between some of the district’s schools, especially since three district schools — Clinton Elementary School and both middle schools, as of July 2016 — are “focus schools.” As such, they have been identified by the state as having lower performance and graduation rates and the widest gaps in achievement between different subgroups of students compared to other schools in the state, according to the state Department of Education.
“If you don’t know what’s really going on in the district, it’s hard for community members to come up with really good ideas for how to segue ourselves back on track,” Wright said. “I want to thank you, but we have a lot of work to do.”
But Lawson-Muhammad pointed out that operational concerns are not the same as strategic direction.
“When we think about strategic direction, it is painting a picture for where we are headed,” Lawson-Muhammad said.
Baker added that the action plans will affect the focus schools, even if they were not mentioned specifically.
“It is not that our committees were not informed of our strengths and our weaknesses,” Baker said, adding that the plans are “strategies to address critical issues” within the district.
Perhaps the harshest critic of the strategic action plan was the student representative to the board, Filip Saulean. The CHS student served on the Strategic Direction Committee and on the Strategy 1 action planning team. Saulean described himself as “naturally a skeptic” and emphasized the importance of keeping the budget in mind when looking at the strategic action plan and in the steps ahead.
“I think this is a step in the right direction, but if this is like truly going to solve the issues that are at Columbia, that are in this school district, we are sorely mistaken and I feel we can’t just pat ourselves on the back and lose track of that,” Saulean said. “In order to move forward, there needs to be more efforts like this. It can’t be ‘OK, we did it once, we’re fine for the next decade,’ because that’s not going to be the case, especially with budget cuts.
“A lot of ideas were cut out simply because we knew they wouldn’t be feasible with the budget line,” Saulean continued. “In order to truly address the issues in this district, like the achievement gap and racial inequities with discipline, we need to flesh out this process a little bit more and attempt it again when the budget isn’t so restrictive.”
In the coming month, there will be multiple opportunities for the community to provide feedback. An education summit will be held at Columbia High School on Tuesday, Dec. 6, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Montrose School will host a staff forum on Monday, Dec. 12, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., and a community forum on Wednesday, Dec. 14, from 9 to 10 a.m.
The Board of Education will meet Monday, Dec. 19, beginning at 7:30 p.m. at Columbia High School; at this meeting the board will vote to adopt the strategic direction, accept the action plans and authorize the administration to create implementation schedules.