Strategic Plan Priorities Up For Vote

Priorities for the Melrose Public Schools' five-year strategic plan will go before the School Committee for a vote at Tuesday night's meeting.

At the last meeting on July 13, the committee voted to adopt five priorities as enumerated by Superintendent Joe Casey:

• Improving mathematics performances across the board.
• Improving the district's technology, including building out school websites where students and parents can get information and integrating technology more into classrooms.
• Expanding the capacity to serve students who have special education needs, including using a co-teaching model so all students are exposed to the same curriculum. "(Students with special education needs) need to have the same experiences and opportunity for success and judged that same way, albeit with some additional help, but knowing they'll be held accountable," Casey said.
• Committing to finishing the English-Language Arts movement already begun in Melrose Public Schools, particularly the literacy initiative.
• Standardize expectations for students across schools in the district.

Committee member J.D. LaRock offered to work on a draft "bridge document," which intends to create a bridge between the strategic plan's broad goals and its specific measures of success, and bring that draft to Tuesday's meeting.

Also on Tuesday's agenda is a vote to approve the strategic plan's action plans, developed by school administrators. When the strategic plan was first presented in June, committee members expressed concerns about the seeming lack of prioritization and how to meet the strategic plans benchmarks.

The former concern led to the bridge document process underway, while the latter concern was addressed by Casey, who said the strategic plan would be used each year to develop "action plans" for the coming school year — developed by school administrators and presented to the School Committee for approval, detailing how the district plans to meet the plan's benchmarks and move towards meeting the plan's goals.