District 211 board hears public input for new strategic plan
After nearly six months of gathering public input, the leaders of Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211's community engagement facilitating team on Thursday shared a summary of their findings with the school board.
The data they collected will drive a new five-year strategic plan the board intends to draft and approve by approximately the start of the coming school year.
Facilitating team co-leader Linda Reedy said the basic purpose of the endeavor - called "The 211 of Tomorrow" - was to better serve the students of the district.
"Listening was really the key of what we were doing here," Reedy said. "Simply put, our children are our future. They are critical to our success as a society, as a community."
As fellow leader Peter Carlson added, a satisfying element of the process was that consensus on many topics was recognized - whether the input was gathered through large community engagement meetings, smaller focus groups or in online and telephone surveys.
While community members expressed high levels of satisfaction with current academic and extracurricular programs, a number of challenges also were identified.
Among these were the growing student diversity not being reflected by the staff, the need for stronger emphasis on vocational training for students who aren't college-bound, and a desire for graduates to be technology-savvy without being completely distracted by it.
A rare example of a lack of consensus was that one financial focus group was largely satisfied with the state of the district's finances while a second suggested the district was not fully transparent and had built up its money reserves too heavily, Carlson said.
He added that while the facilitating team was proud of the input it had gathered, he was personally pleased it was now the board's responsibility to turn it into a strategic plan.
Superintendent Dan Cates said one thing that came through loud and clear in the process was how big a role District 211 plays in the community it serves.
"It was a remarkable partnership over the course of many months," Cates said. "We are a school district that is ready, willing and committed to constantly improving."