The Saskatchewan Rivers School Division has updated their Strategic Plan for 2024 to 2030.
Director of education Neil Finch updated the board on changes during their regular meeting on Monday.
The revisions were made after several months of consultation with division senior leaders, school principals and vice principals, SCC chairs, and students from Saskatchewan Rivers Students for Change and were approved by the board. The Strategic Plan replaces the one that ran from 2021 to 2024.
“It (the plan) really did not come into play until about fall of 2022, so we only had two years really with the Strat Plan,” Finch explained. “It was really hard to go deep into what was in it. This way with the longer term plan, we can go deeper and try to make the improvements that we’re hoping to.
“I think we’re just excited that we get to dive deeper into our focus areas, which we think are quite important,” he added.
The five priorities remain the same: Learning and Innovation, Mental Health and Well-Being, Inclusion and Cultural Responsiveness, Citizenship and Relationships, and Governance and
Leadership, but changes to the focus areas within the priorities have been shifted to better reflect the aspirations of the division to offer multiple pathways for excellence in education, according to a press release.
In learning and innovation, the division added exemplary instruction, assessment and feedback practices and experiential play-based learning goals.
Inclusion and cultural responsiveness goals include acknowledging and encouraging equity, diversity, and inclusion for all individuals and groups (including LGBTQ2S+ and newcomers).
Finch said the previous strategic plan was short, but they were able to enhance and revise it to create new plan.
“I would say that the bigger changes would be including experiential play-based learning within our Strat Plan including land-based learning as a focus,” he said.
The division has created four metrics to determine if the strategic plan is succeeding. They are student achievement, common supports, improving the quality of student work over the quantity of work, and being able to respond to changing needs in the division.
Finch said it was important to add metrics that can help them monitor progress.
“I think just more accountability around measuring whether we’re achieving our Strat Plan or not. That piece was absent in the Strat Plan so we wanted to add that in to give us some accountability around the measurable that can exist within a Strat Plan,” he said.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
