Dist. 220 progressing on strategic plan

Barrington Unit District 220 board members Tuesday heard progress reports from half the committees charged with the task of formulating a strategic plan on what the high school graduates of 2020 should already have learned.

“We need a strategic plan that is nimble, that can adjust to other variables,” said district spokesman Jeff Arnett, who coordinates the committees.

“The other thing about the plan is that it’s very visible,” he added. “We’ve reemphasized the strands of the strategic plan.”

The three committees that reported Tuesday are focused on global learning, individualized learning and social-emotional learning.

The other committees, which will present their reports on Sept. 20, are focused on technology, healthy and environmentally sustainable schools and optimal time for learning.

The six focus areas of the strategic plan were selected in the winter and spring of 2009 after more than 300 volunteers met for months to get the strategic plan off the ground.

Board President Brian Battle asked the committees present Tuesday whether these particular areas of emphasis still felt right. All committee members said they felt like universal areas of concern for school districts.

Superintendent Tom Leonard agreed, whether District 220 was the first to identify each of these areas.

But board member Penny Kazmier said district administrators did seem to have been the first to identify areas of concern that are now general — such as social-emotional learning and a more cautious approach to the threat of concussion in student athletes.

“We do always seem to be half a step in front of everybody,” she said.

Members of the global learning committee said they continue to get input from what employers are looking for in 21st century employees.

The answer is people able to compete in a global economy — critical thinkers who can work effectively in groups.

One of the priorities the social-emotional committee has hit upon is to devise a new, broader definition of student success — one that will make its way into educators’ conversations with parents and each other.

“I do want to see the definition of success,” board Member Nicholas Sauer said. “That seems to me the key ... the target to all these strands.”