strategic plan for planning in education

Ensure your strategic plan succeeds with your educational partners’ input

September 29, 2023

Sarah Mathias

Strategic planning in education – 3 keys to success.

Effective strategic planning is critical for creating positive change in your district. Among the many benefits, strategic plans align educational partners with a shared vision, mission, and values; promote productive decision-making; and help students reach their full potential.

While having a plan in place will usually improve results, strategic planning can present challenges—resulting in endless meetings, countless goal and tactic revisions, and plans that are never fully realized.

In this post, we explore strategic planning in education, touch on some K-12 planning tips, and share three best practices for making strategic planning successful in your school district. With your community’s insights and the right tools, you can win at strategic planning. Here’s how.

In this Article

• What is Strategic Planning in Education?

Strategic planning tips for K12

See thoughtexchange in action — watch the product tour, what is strategic planning in education.

Strategic planning is the process of setting goals, deciding on actions to achieve those goals, and mobilizing the resources needed to take those actions. A strategic plan describes how goals will be achieved using available resources.

While the concept initially stemmed from business practices due to people moving from the private sector into educational leadership positions, many strategic planning tools and paradigms have been adapted to focus on engagement and consensus.

This is because effective strategic planning requires community support at the school district level, both functionally and legislatively. School districts of all sizes use strategic planning to improve student outcomes and respond to changing demographics while staying within the given funding box.

In top-performing schools, leaders have proactively shifted their strategic planning process to include their educational partners. They know that their strategic plans are more likely to succeed with community support and the insights that come with community engagement.

Strategic planning is key to setting students up for success in K-12 and beyond. A solid strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission, and values, increasing engagement while providing a framework to ensure students’ needs are met so they can reach their full potential.

Your strategic plan will benefit from your district’s input. Here are a few effective ways to engage your district in K-12 strategic planning.

Tap into your educational partners’ wisdom

Your educational partners have valuable insights. Consult teachers, staff, students , parents, and community members throughout the planning process, so your strategy aligns with their perspectives.

Whether you’re setting strategy at the district, school, or department level, consulting diverse participants will uncover unbiased insights, enhance trust and buy-in, and ensure greater success with new strategic directions.

Using ThoughtExchange , leaders can scale their engagement to efficiently and effectively include their community in their district strategic plans.

Use climate surveys

Completed by all students, parents/guardians, and staff, school climate surveys allow leaders to collect participants’ perceptions about issues like school safety, bullying, and mental health and well-being, as well as the general school environment.

ThoughtExchange Surveys get you both nuanced qualitative and robust quantitative data with instant in-depth analysis, ensuring your district understands all angles of school climate. Run surveys independently or combine them with Exchanges for faster, more accurate results.

• Collect benchmark comparisons while tracking and measuring improvements over time
• Gather quality quantitative data for reporting to state agencies or funders
• Identify outliers and trends across demographic groups

Put in some face time with town halls, meetings, or listening tours

In-person gatherings like town halls, meetings, and listening tours are effective ways to understand your educational partners’ wants and needs to ensure they line up with your strategic priorities.

When managed effectively, they give staff and other educational partners the chance to closely interact. In-person gatherings can build trust and morale, promote transparency, and help create a sense of purpose.

Leverage community engagement platforms

Community engagement software lets you streamline your community engagement initiatives. It allows education leaders to gather feedback and get tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people on the same page in just days. It also facilitates candid, collaborative community conversations that help districts realize their goals.

A comprehensive community engagement platform like ThoughtExchange allows you to integrate your strategy with your community and take decisive, supported action in less time. It provides planning, scheduling, and analysis tools to help you quickly set strategy and monitor execution.

3 keys to strategic planning success

1. get everyone on the same page.

Make sure your educational partners are on the same page by allowing them to contribute to and shape your strategy from the start. Lack of alignment about what strategy involves can hinder even the best plans. So the first step in creating a successful strategic plan is getting everyone involved to provide their insights and opinions.

Letting your people know you’re listening and that their insights affect decisions, builds trust and buy-in. Your community will be much more likely to support—not sabotage—a strategy or decision.

2. Be a collaborative leader

According to ThinkStrategic , creating a school strategic plan should always be a collaborative process. Avoiding a top-down approach and getting input from educational partners will help minimize blind spots and unlock collective intelligence. It will also ensure everyone is committed to the plan. Get all community members involved in how to make the most of the school’s possibilities.

Commit to becoming a collaborative leader and put a plan in place to ensure you can achieve that goal. That may include implementing technology that can support scaled, real-time discussion safely and inclusively for students, teachers, and other educational partners.

3. Get a holistic view of your district

Getting a holistic view of your educational partners’ wants and needs helps you build more inclusive, supported strategic plans.

Depend on a platform that meets all your engagement needs in one place—from surveys to Exchanges—and allows you to consult more people in an inclusive, anti-biased environment. You’ll reduce the time and resources spent on town halls and meetings, and reach your district’s goals more efficiently and effectively.

Engagement and survey software has been proven to contribute to more effective strategic planning in education. It empowers leaders to run and scale unbiased engagement initiatives where they can learn what the people who matter really think— explore ThoughtExchange success stories to learn more .

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In education, evolution and adaptation are constants. Academic institutions must stay up to date with technology and teaching methods to succeed, while also managing students' social, emotional, and academic needs. With all of these considerations in addition to budgetary constraints, It's easy to see why ensuring student and institutional success requires a dynamic strategic plan.

This blog post will outline the best practices academic institutions should consider when developing an effective strategic plan to address these challenges. To create an effective strategic plan, we need to eliminate the disconnect between leadership's high-level vision and employees' tactical work. Leading academic institutions, growing companies, and organizations adapt to change through dynamic strategic planning. 

A dynamic strategic plan breaks down an organization's long-term vision into short-term goals and then builds a roadmap to achieve those goals. As part of this process, the organization's plan should be reviewed and revised regularly to ensure relevance and alignment with its mission. Academic plans are typically written as multi-year plans and organizations often face challenges in developing effective strategic plans that are easy to understand and execute. Here are a few suggestions to help address these challenges:

• Clearly define your vision: The first step in developing an effective strategic plan is to define the vision for the school. This should be a clear, concise statement that articulates what the school hopes to achieve. 
• Identify key objectives: Once you have a clear vision, identify the key objectives that will help you achieve them. These should be specific and measurable goals that align with your vision.
• Create measurable, outcome-focused key results: With your objectives in mind, it is important to focus on creating key results that drive outcomes, not outputs to help you reach your targets. Schools that focus on driving actionable objectives with outcome-based key results will ensure they stay aligned on what truly matters.
• Prioritize and allocate resources: It's essential to prioritize your strategies and allocate resources accordingly. Determine which strategies are most critical to achieving your objectives and ensure that you have the resources (e.g., time, budget, personnel) to implement them effectively.
• Monitor and evaluate progress: Finally, monitor and evaluate progress regularly to ensure that you are on track to achieving your objectives. This will help you identify areas where you may need to adjust your strategies or allocate additional resources.

By following these steps, academic institutions can develop a strategic planning framework and process that is effective, simple, and links vision to tactical execution. So now that we have the steps needed to build our strategy, let's start to bring it to life.

Take a field trip: host an annual Strategic Planning Offsite 

Before each academic year, we recommend holding a strategic planning meeting offsite with your leadership team. This is dedicated time to focus on the priorities for the upcoming year. Before diving into where you're headed, set aside time for a retrospective to discuss the previous year. In addition, discuss the current education landscape.

To build a future-focused and tailored plan for your academic institution, the team should reconfirm your mission and values, set your vision, and define your top strategic priorities. 

As you head into your offsite, we recommend the following best practices that lead to success:

• Get Outside of the Office : Find space outside of the work environment to reduce distractions and encourage collaboration.
• Set a Clear Agenda : Agree ahead of time on the purpose of each day, the deliverables, and actionable next steps. 
• Make Space to Think: Carve out time for free thinking vs. relying on group thinking to encourage new ideas. If you need a template, we recommend using this worksheet to guide the conversation .

Simplify the strategic plan: align your high-level strategy with tactical execution

Academic plans are typically written as multi-year plans (5-year plans are most common) which can lead to a very detailed and dense plan. Given the complexity and length of the strategic plan, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to break the plan down and prioritize what’s most imperative to execute and focus on. We recommend breaking the larger multi-year plan into digestible annual plans that are more manageable. 

We recommend identifying 3-5 main themes in your strategic plan, often referred to as pillars or rallying cries. Once you have core themes, you can prioritize and bucket the most critical initiatives and objectives. Every theme will have specific supporting objectives and key results. We recommend using consistent nomenclature when creating themes, objectives, and key results so any team member can easily understand why the work is significant. 

Once we have the multi-year plan broken into annual plans and themes identified, we recommend defining short-term objectives (quarterly or semi-annually) and measurable metrics to drive key results. Breaking down the plan into quarters will feel more approachable and attainable. In addition, it will provide clarity and transparency for the executing team. When the strategic plan is broken down into actionable items, small wins can be celebrated along the way. This boosts motivation, engagement, and morale.  

Consistency is key to a successful strategic plan

When individuals understand how their work aligns with the high-level strategy and vision, they can prioritize their initiatives. Establish clear, measurable objectives and key results that are easy to track and provide consistent nomenclature. Keep these three tips in mind when writing your strategic plan objectives:

• Objectives should be aspirational and push people outside their comfort zone.
• Each objective should have 2-3 measurable and quantifiable results.
• Have a clear, defined owner responsible for recurring status updates. 

The best way to write objectives is to start by asking, “Why is this initiative important?” When you understand the why, you can create measurable outcome-driven results. Let’s walk through an example objective with key results laid out in Elate.

Theme: Develop and retain a diverse educator workforce.

Objective: Strengthen and diversify the educator pipeline and workforce.

Objective Purpose Statement: Increase mentoring and leadership development programs to retain educators, particularly educators from under-represented backgrounds. 

Key metrics: 

• Increase mentoring program engagement by 50% 
• 96% educator retention rate 

Implement rituals and track success with dynamic strategic planning

After your plan is built, it is imperative to establish rituals to stay on track and measure progress against the strategic plan. Rituals are defined as a rhythm, cadence, and process for reviewing objectives and strategic plans. Establishing strong rituals allows critical conversations to happen proactively. When objectives are stuck in limbo or fall off track, proactive discussions can happen. However, many academic institutions have different rituals for different teams. Implementing consistent rituals regularly will help you stay aligned, measure progress, and ensure you’re having the right conversations at the right time.

To keep everyone on the same page and connect tactical execution to strategic vision, we recommend objective owners provide bi-weekly updates. Across many academic institutions, strategy, and operations leaders spend countless hours tracking down updates that become outdated quickly. With Elate, reminder notifications are automatically sent to team members so they can focus more on execution and less on chasing down updates. 

We recommend spending a few minutes in executive team meetings reviewing objectives that are off-track or not making progress to create an action plan moving forward. This ritual of reviewing the plan early often brings awareness to the leadership team about objectives that need attention or are falling behind. It also allows space to celebrate accomplishments and wins. 

This makes it easy to ensure the strategic plan lives and breathes. Setting and clearly defining rituals for how the plan progresses, updates are made and reviewed, and addressing red flags is key to success. 

Focus on the right metrics to measure your strategic plan's success

With key results, objectives, and business-as-usual metrics all in one place, Elate keeps the strategic plan organized with a consolidated view. In Elate, scorecards provide an essential view of business-as-usual metrics and progress. Create specific scorecards for the board, enrollment, grant, and donor activity. 

Elevate your strategic plan with Elate

Strategic planning is critical for academic institutions that want to stay competitive, adapt to change, and achieve their goals. By following these best practices, higher education and academic institutions can achieve their goals and stay competitive in an ever-changing environment. 

Strategic planning has never been easier with Elate. Our platform simplifies and streamlines the strategic planning process, taking the stress out of it. We make it easy to stay on track with transparent reporting, simple collaboration, and one-click integrations with Salesforce, Google Sheets, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Your vision can finally meet your strategy.

Learn more about our strategic planning tools and services, or contact us today to learn more about how we specifically work with other Academic Institutions!

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5 Steps To Highly Effective Strategic Planning In Higher Education (FREE template)

A crystal clear strategic plan can be the big difference between becoming the leading university… VERSUS ending up at the bottom. You know - where you struggle to attract students, the right staff members or even funds to support your institution.

So, in order to achieve your university’s goals, you need to learn how to build an effective strategic plan. 

In this blog post, we will reveal:

• The #1 reason university strategies fail
• The overlooked role of a strategic plan for higher ed
• The 5-step process you can follow to build a plan with your team

What is strategic planning in higher education? 

Strategic planning is the process an institution follows to realize its vision of its ideal future state. It’s a roadmap for getting there. Your vision becomes a reality through the process that defines specific goals, needs, and actions. It helps you to structure and contextualize information leading to important decisions. 

Sounds obvious, right? 

So, the question is:

Why do so many universities fail at strategic planning?

Because they forgot what the main role of a strategic plan is.

Most universities and colleges work on some form of strategic planning, but they usually come out as a 28-page PDF. They create an impressive presentation with shiny headings, upload it to their website and consider themselves successful. 

The end result is a ‘strategic plan’ that serves more as a marketing brochure and less like a roadmap to success.

What’s wrong with this usual approach?

Most vice-chancellors and vice presidents are not even aware of what they are losing. Staff members and faculty members work in silos with no focus on the big picture. Departmental plans are unaligned with the overall strategic plan. This leads to inefficiency, wasted resources, and things getting missed.

Clearly, this approach lacks the organization and accountability necessary for success. As a result, some institutions are losing their reputation, while others are losing program accreditation, experiencing declining student success, or having fewer funds available.

Sometimes all of the above. 

Strategic planning goes beyond ambitious and attractive presentations that describe the organization’s state in the next 5, 10 or more years.

Now let's take a closer look...

What is the real purpose of the strategic plan in higher education?

Your first and foremost goal should be to stay true to the promises you made to your stakeholders.

Think of your strategic plan as the foundation to achieve your long-term goals.

It’s supposed to help you translate high-level ambitions into tangible actions at a departmental level. Furthermore, it organizes everyone so that they can do those actions and report on them in a systematic and transparent manner. 

It serves as a guiding light for your staff, allowing them to focus on the things that drive real progress towards the university's strategic goals. 

On top of that, it’s an important resource for planning your yearly budget allocation. Even in the most difficult financial times, integrating strategic planning and budgeting throughout the organization creates opportunities for success.

It's obvious, isn't it? You need to stop treating your strategic plan as merely a glorified marketing document.

What are the 5 steps in the strategic planning process?

This five-step process will help you to craft a strategic plan that goes beyond marketing and delivers on promised results.

1. Understand your current situation

An effective planning process starts with a thorough understanding of your current situation. 

You can start by asking these questions: 

• What are our core competencies?
• Which important KPIs are trending over the last few years upwards? 
• Where do we notice a drop in performance? What led to this drop?
• Where do we want to be in 5 or 10 years?
• Do we need to develop new programs?
• How do we get there? 
• What external factors can impact us in the future?

Search for answers and go deep into every department and aspect of your institution. From financial health and university rankings to student enrollment, retention rates, and placement rates.

Next, understand the expectations and needs of your internal and external stakeholders.

Remember, top-down approach doesn’t work for universities. Higher education institutions are highly interconnected with their community and shouldn’t neglect its interest when making strategic decisions.

Collect feedback from every stakeholder group whose expectations affect your performance:

• Alumni members
• Faculty members & campus community
• Community groups
• Senior administrators
• External partnerships

Include their input into planning and translate it into the institution’s major goals. Embrace this collaborative approach and prevent too many unexpected "buts" in the future.

Don’t forget that you’re only collecting information at this stage, not brainstorming solutions or action plans. 

‍ Cascade tip:

The SWOT analysis framework  is still one of the most effective methods for evaluating internal operations and the external environment. Be honest and thorough in your evaluation. You can use it numerous times through strategic planning but you should start early in the planning process.

2. Lead with vision and values

Your university's vision is a part of its identity and a powerful latent tool.

Higher ed institutions of any size can utilize it, but they usually don’t. They don’t believe that people care about the big picture or that it affects the university's daily operations.

However, a clear and unique vision statement will set you apart from the competition and make you more memorable to potential students. They will know exactly what to expect from studying at your university and why they should come. 

At the same time, it gives a strong sense of pride and belonging to current students, faculty, and alumni. It becomes an emblem that attracts the right students, staff members, and funding opportunities. 

Here’s  an example  of a vision statement for the university: 

We will work as one Oxford bringing together our staff, students and alumni, our colleges, faculties, departments and divisions to provide world-class research and education.

- University of Oxford

You can take it one step further and include your institutional mission statement. 

And don’t forget about the values. They define your university’s culture. They determine how people act, which behaviors are praised and which are condemned. 

When you build a culture intentionally, then everyone inside and outside your school knows what you stand for, reinforcing all the benefits of a harnessed vision.

Cascade tip:

One of the biggest blockers to the successful execution of a strategic plan is the attempt to accomplish too much at once.  Creating a Vision Statement  will help you to avoid that trap right from the start. It becomes your north star guiding your strategy. It will be easier for you to identify what is relevant and worthy of your attention versus what isn't.

3. Concentrate your strategic planning efforts on key areas

There's a problem most presidents and strategic planning committees face: they don't define the real focus of their plans. 

You see, you can’t achieve everything, everywhere, all at once.

Your resources are limited, and you should prioritize accordingly. 

I’m glad you followed the first two steps. Now you have all the information you need to identify the biggest and most urgent challenges your university faces.

Clarifying the obstacles ahead of time helps you prioritize your strategic goals and develop focused efforts to achieve them.

For example, let’s say you’re creating a 5-year strategic plan. Here are some key focus groups you might want to focus on: 

• Provide superb undergraduate experience 
• Ensure graduate education and lifetime learning 
• Increase community engagement 
• Increase research excellence 
• Optimize financial resources

Focus areas help you decide what falls outside the university's priorities and prioritize your strategic planning efforts. 

We usually suggest creating between 3 to 5 Focus Areas. Any fewer and they will probably be too vague. Any more, and well..... you lose your focus. Dive deeper into focus areas with this  guide . 

4. Translate plan into tangible actions

This is the part that turns your strategic plan into reality. 

If you ever want to achieve your goals, you need to break down the plan into smaller, granular pieces specific to each department. Start by adding strategic objectives to your focus areas. 

The secret to  writing great strategic objectives  is simplicity and specificity. Avoid jargon and use a verb to indicate action. Accompany it with a deadline and preferably an owner (or two).

Here is an example:

Increase citations per faculty by 5% by May 2024, owned by Jane Doe.

The next step is to migrate from goal-setting to action-planning with projects. Projects describe what you’ll do to accomplish your objectives.

Projects  articulate a set of actions within a certain timeline. They include specific tasks, milestones, dependencies and dates (deadlines). Every objective should include at least one project or action-like event. Otherwise, you’ll never achieve any progress towards it.

Of course, nothing is so linear, but this process forces you to come up with action plans to support every strategic initiative and allocate funds and your staff’s time appropriately.

One of the most important steps in the planning process is to take the high-level plan and break it down into tangible actions at the departmental level. 

Cascade  helps you to achieve that with  planning models completely customizable  to your strategic planning approach. 

You can create a university-wide strategic plan and then break it down into  portfolio or departmental plans.  Clarify their goals, projects and key metrics. Collaborate with your teams to build multiple inter-connected plans and tie them back to the overall plan.

You get complete  visibility into how different plans or projects are connected  and contribute to the overall strategic plan. 

5. Don’t forget to measure progress

There is no perfect strategic planning for higher education (or anywhere for that matter). 

Every plan can be derailed by events beyond our control (such as a pandemic, change in public policy, or an unstable economic environment on a global scale). There is, however, disciplined execution through regular reviewing habits. The secret lies in the way you measure your progress and the frequency of reviewing it.

Determine the indexes that you want to improve and then  set key performance indicators (KPIs)  to drive and measure your performance against set targets. 

Here are some examples of KPIs you might want to keep track of:

• University ranking
• Post-graduation placement rate
• Number of students involved in undergraduate research
• Fundraising ROI

Establish the KPIs you will be reporting on in advance, and always end your reviews with a "next steps" discussion.

Create dashboards to measure progress in real-time.  Cascade’s customizable dashboards  help you to quickly identify areas that are underperforming and act before it’s too late.

Zoom your screen in on the screenshot below to check out Cascade's beautiful dashboards!

Extra tip:  Use Cascade reports to help you demonstrate your success in a transparent way and attract more investments in the key areas of your university. 

What’s next for your university?

Most university’s failure to reach their strategic goals isn’t because of bad strategy, but because strategy is constrained by PowerPoint. Kept miles from those who can make it happen. The best in Advancement, the finest HR, the most profound ideas - they’re all framed in slides rather than shaping every day’s activities for everyone across the university.

Remember, a strategic plan isn’t just a glossy presentation to attract new students or to get that accreditation approval for your academic program. It’s a manifesto for every employee to embrace and enact in whatever they do at your university. 

So, the next step is to transform your strategy from an intellectual exercise to an executable plan. It’s just a matter of shifting your approach and using the right tools. 

And once you make that shift, you’ll be able to create  an organized and aligned approach  to make your strategic goals happen.

Do that and get your plan to everyone, and your competition will be choking in your dust.

Are you ready to create your plan and start executing it? Turn your strategic plan into a competitive advantage with our 100% free, battle-tested strategic plan template , built for teams in higher education. 

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The Importance of Strategic Planning in Education

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blog , Education , Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a method used in various industries to deliberately guide decision-making. In education, strategic planning provides leaders with guidance to keep the institution operating, carry out its missions and comply with regulations. Educational strategic planning focuses on the future of a college or university, providing an intentional way to reflect on performance and determine where to implement initiatives to make positive changes for the future.

To create effective university strategic plans, administrators and stakeholders must understand the ins and outs of how they work and how they can apply them.

In This Article

• Lack of Ownership
• Poor Strategic Alignment
• Poor Communication
• Slow Plan Adoption
• Improve Efficiency
• Engage Stakeholders and the Community
• Form a Focus
• Plan a Future
• Test Your Hypotheses
• Use Specific Language
• Make Implementation a Priority
• Hold Team Members Accountable

Transform Strategic Planning and Execution Within Your Education Institution With AchieveIt

The challenges of strategic planning in education.

Universities and colleges face several pressures and challenges that can complicate strategic planning in educational environments. Understanding some of these challenges can help you overcome them to create an impactful approach.

1. Lack of Ownership

While strategic plans involve feedback and participation from all of your institution’s departments and entities, you should limit ownership of the plan and documentation to one person. Without explicit ownership over the strategic plan, initiatives are more likely to be lost, forgotten or overlooked. With one person in charge, your school is more likely to achieve success.

2. Poor Strategic Alignment

Alignment and representation across your university are crucial to success. Universities and colleges often experience a lack of strategic alignment because the church and state divisions typically have different goals for schools. These clashing perspectives lead to poor strategic alignment and a stand-still in decision-making.

3. Poor Communication

Many educational institutions also struggle with strategic planning due to poor organizational communication. Effectively implementing a strategic plan requires institutional-wide teamwork. Poor communication significantly increases the difficulty of agreeing upon and executing effective solutions and setting attainable goals.

4. Slow Plan Adoption

With a significant focus on innovation and growth, universities may make numerous changes in a year. Constant changes often lead to low motivation to adopt new plans. The longer your teams take to implement a strategic plan, the more likely it is to become outdated. When this situation happens, the plan becomes irrelevant to your current processes.

Why Education Institutions Need Strategic Planning

Despite the inherent challenges, educational strategic planning is necessary for a successful institution operation. A strategic plan can help you improve several aspects of your educational institution through intentional goal-setting and initiative implementation. Strategic planning for colleges and universities helps students, staff and the community progress toward a better future.

Here are a few reasons you should use strategic planning in education:

1. Improve Efficiency

One of the biggest reasons to begin strategic planning is the opportunity for improved efficiency in numerous areas of your organization. The challenges of educational planning often lead to a lack of efficiency. Strategic planning for schools allows leaders to determine more effective ways to streamline processes.

For example, your decision-making teams may take significant time to agree on new policies or procedures. Strategic planning helps your institution use time more efficiently because it allows you to form decision-making strategies.

Improved efficiency also results in better cost-effectiveness. The less time is wasted, the more money you’ll save, especially over time.

2. Engage Stakeholders and the Community

Strategic planning involves more people than only the primary decision-makers — your planning should involve your community and stakeholders. Feedback from these entities can help you develop a more beneficial and strategically targeted plan based on what these entities want or need from you. Engaging the stakeholders and community also shows you value their input and want to create an environment where they want to be.

3. Form a Focus

Determining a focus for the school year ahead can be challenging without clear objectives. Without focus, your institution will struggle to grow and attract students and staff. For example, you may have vague expectations for the upcoming school year, which prevents decisions and progress from being made. A strategic plan allows you to determine your goals and focus for the upcoming year and beyond while also helping you track your progress.

4. Plan a Future

Strategic planning is ideal for planning a successful future for your institution. Developing a plan for your future helps ensure your school can grow and continue benefiting from its offerings. Rather than being unprepared for the next year and future school years, you can effectively strategize to make the most of your school year.

Strategic Planning Tips for Education Institutions

While every school’s strategic plan will look different depending on its goals and resources, the strategic planning process is often similar for colleges and universities. Explore a few tips for educational strategic planning to help you get started:

1. Test Your Hypotheses

You’re ultimately hypothesizing the outcome when you set initiatives in your strategic plan. These hypotheses are often based on assumptions, though it’s typically best to experiment to determine what would work and what may not. For example, if you ask your faculty to begin submitting weekly reports, conduct a quick test to ensure they can do so and have time to do so.

2. Use Specific Language

Using vague or wordy language increases the risk of confusion and the possibility of initiatives being misunderstood and ignored. Swapping out complicated words for simpler, more specific words can help ensure everyone understands your plan. It can help to have someone review the language you use to ensure nothing is confusing and everyone is on the same page.

3. Make Implementation a Priority

Because schools involve numerous departments and divisions, implementing a plan can be difficult without prioritization . Make your plan a priority to ensure it’s properly implemented. Doing so is often easiest when leaders promote and require implementation.

4. Hold Team Members Accountable

Another way to make university strategic plans stick is by holding team members accountable. School performance management software allows you to track reports and other strategy-related information to determine who’s completing their duties so you can keep them accountable.

Educational institutions require significant planning to ensure a successful school year. Strategic planning software for higher education can help you focus your strategy despite your institution’s challenges. Software like AchieveIt has features that help your team turn ideas into actions.

A few things you can do with our software include:

• Solve common implementation challenges: AchieveIt makes connecting members of your team and various initiatives easy. You can track projects, keep everyone on the same page and quickly send updates.
• Gain comprehensive visibility: Our platform lets you see every initiative in real time, providing comprehensive visibility over progress.
• Consult with our experts: Our strategic plan experts help you execute your plan effectively. Draw on our expertise for inspiration or customize one of our templates to create your plan.

Let’s actually do this. Request a demo of AchieveIt to see what we can do for you today.

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Strategic Planning

7 reasons why schools need strategic planning.

By Mary King

20 march 2023.

• 1 1. A strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission and values
• 2 2. A strategic plan effectively organizes schools, staff, and time
• 3 3. A strategic plan defines how success is measured
• 4 4. A strategic plan helps with decision-making, responsiveness, and innovation
• 5 5. A strategic plan increases communication and engagement
• 6 6. A strategic plan keeps everyone in a school—from teachers to administrators—connected
• 7 7. The best reason of all for strategic planning comes back to every great school’s number one priority: students
• 8 Download the guide ↓

The past three years have been disruptive for every sector. For educational institutions, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone–from staff and teachers, to the students who had to switch to a new modality of learning, to the parents supporting them. Strategic planning in education has revealed itself to be a very important part of recovering. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the COVID-19 pandemic forced nearly 55 million children home in the US alone—and at least 1.4 billion children out of school or child care across the globe. Higher education institutions have been profoundly financially impacted , and both the learning experience and mental wellbeing of the students has been negatively affected.

While every educational institution was impacted by this, some schools were more prepared than others to face the unique challenges COVID-19 posed–those schools who had previously established strategic plans were better prepared to navigate the pandemic than those without.

It’s clear to us: Schools that embrace a great strategic plan, and commit to strategic planning in education, have clear advantages over schools that don’t.

We’re going to talk about some of those advantages now, look at some examples of strategic planning in education, and give 7 reasons for why every school with a vision of excellence for their students should embrace a strategic planning process for schools. Whether it’s getting back on track after a hugely disruptive, global event like COVID-19, identifying the most important strategies to improve student outcomes, or increasing staff engagement, all schools benefit from strategic planning and strategic plan implementation.

1. A strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission and values

The ability for schools to collaborate, share, and communicate short and long term goals is a critical part of moving plans forward in line with a vision, mission, and values. Schools benefit from a well communicated and executed strategic plan that keeps everyone informed of their strategic goals, and how their actions are contributing to the achievement of these goals. This enables parents, staff, community members, and stakeholders to work towards a common vision.

A major additional benefit of strategic planning in education is that it provides an opportunity for active employee engagement across an organization. When it comes to strategic planning for educational institutions, that benefit remains present. Research suggests that a leading cause for employee discontent (in general, but especially in the public sector) is that employees don’t understand how the work they’re doing helps their greater organization.

If the school is able to clearly define and remind employees and stakeholders of the shared vision, employees are more likely to feel connected to the work they are doing within that organization. Whether that work is educating students, organizing reports, performing critical administrative duties, or coordinating the process of standardized testing, everyone plays a part in a student’s success.

2. A strategic plan effectively organizes schools, staff, and time

We understand that schools–whether they are elementary schools, high schools, or higher education institutions– are complex institutions, with boards, committees, districts, unions, and many different types of stakeholders involved. Because the organizations themselves are so large, and plans are often multi-year, complex entities built up by multiple stakeholders and workers, struggles with organization and effective time management are common.

Envisio provides strategic planning software for educational institutions , and because Envisio works exclusively with the public sector, we understand the unique, complex, and often large scale planning needs of public sector organizations.

“I see Envisio very much as a focusing tool as I work with my team. If you’ve got great people, your primary job is not to get in their way […] I can stay on top of performance in a way that is really unobtrusive, and I don’t have to necessarily interact directly with an individual to get a sense of what’s going on. I can stay abreast of the action plans in the communications department or the action plans in a particular school. If we’re missing the mark on a key performance measure, I can focus more time on having the right conversations.” – Peter Hilts, Chief Education Officer for District 49

3. A strategic plan defines how success is measured

In order to achieve success, it’s important to know what success means, and where to take action first. It is difficult to get a strategic action plan underway without a firm understanding of what problems you’re wanting to solve. When it comes to strategic planning in the public sector, determining clear benchmarks for success is especially important, because the goals are often a combination of abstract, impact-based metrics, and concrete, output-based goals.

Different types of educational institutions are going to have different challenges, and different metrics of success: the educational strategic plans of a public school board district are going to look a lot different from a college or university! The shared reality is that every school with a strategy is better able to monitor its progress toward key outcomes and evaluate where and how it may have gotten off track. Using a strategy implementation software like Envisio can help with measuring success.

At Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED), in Portage County, Ohio, they are measuring success across six pillars, with forty two strategic initiatives . Many of their strategic plan elements (goals, strategies, and actions) include promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion for their students, staff, and employees. Being a major medical research university that is training future medical professionals, diversity, equity, and inclusivity is a critical—and practical—metric! Some of the performance measures that NEOMED tracks include gender demographics, and actionable items towards decreasing disability stigma as part of their Strategic Plan: Creating Transformational Leaders Dashboard .

No matter what your benchmark for “success” is—be it a more impact-focused concept such as “be more welcoming” or more concretely articulated in output terms such as “create a low-cost tutoring center using the library after school”, your strategic plan will provide you with the steps to make get that success underway, and stay on track.

4. A strategic plan helps with decision-making, responsiveness, and innovation

A strategic plan helps educational institutions remain agile during times of change, and also helps them better define what they intend to achieve when it comes to their student success objectives and their greater organizational goals. With a strategic plan in place, educational institutions have a roadmap which they can use to track, evaluate, and modify plans to facilitate better governance decisions and provide clearer direction for the future of the school. This helps a school maintain a steady rhythm of progress towards their goals, and remain ahead of the curve–both in terms of educational innovation, and when (not if) a disruptive change occurs.

“It’s difficult, because you’re trying to help students prepare for the future – to prepare for jobs that might not exist yet. You’re trying to develop educators and an education that gives them the skills to think critically.” – Dr. Alison Gillespie, the Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning with White Bear Lake Area School District (WBLAS) in Ramsey County, Minnesota

White Bear Lake Area School District (WBLAS), MN, was able to leverage their strategic plan as a way to embrace change and turn obstacles (like COVID-19) into opportunities for success. They embraced active learning techniques and, through their strategic plan, were able to think ahead to turn disruptions into teachable moments that engaged students and staff alike.

5. A strategic plan increases communication and engagement

A strategic plan ( and particularly, one that is publicly communicated on a dashboard ) helps with overall communication and engagement. For a school board, communicating that your plans and your metrics for success are part of a larger, holistic plan, is critical to building trust with stakeholders and maintaining effective engagement—both internally, and externally.

Strategic planning in education is critical in settings where trust is paramount. Educational institutions—at all levels—work on the understanding that one group (the educators) has knowledge they can impart, share, or coax out in another group (the students). The need for a trusting relationship with the students and everyone involved in that student’s success needs to be central to a positive educational environment.

A strategic plan that can be easily found, referenced, and understood helps assure everyone involved that the school in question is aware of their plans, has them in focus, and has a plan for their shortcomings. Educational strategic planning also has the additional benefit of keeping stakeholders—such as donors—excited about the school’s vision. When it comes to fundraising, donors are more likely to support a school that has a clear vision and a strategy to make it happen.

6. A strategic plan keeps everyone in a school—from teachers to administrators—connected

A well implemented and communicated strategic plan holds all staff accountable for their actions and encourages collaboration. In educational settings, this circle of responsibility is extended out towards the community; providing excellent and accessible education is an effort that requires all hands on deck. Being able to simplify the strategic planning process and make it visible and easy to use is one way to ensure everyone stays connected.

One of the benefits of using a strategic planning software partner like Envisio is that individual action plans (from individual schools or departments) can be aligned, all the way up to a greater strategic objective. For multi-year, complex plans, such as setting a national standard of excellence, or incorporating culturally significant teachings—it’s important that teachers and staff are able to understand who is working on what, and where it fits into the greater whole.

7. The best reason of all for strategic planning comes back to every great school’s number one priority: students

Best of all, strategic planning in education provides a framework so that the most important priority of the school – students’ educational achievement – is taken care of. Having a sturdy educational strategic plan helps keep issues like digital equity , accessibility , literacy , preparation for an ever changing workforce , and social and environmental enrichment , front of mind. When the experience of the student is the priority for the school, the strategic plan becomes a collaborative effort to figure out how best to set students up for success.

Being on the same page for these goals is extremely important for schools: sound planning and communication helps ensure that stakeholders, including parents, teachers, administrators, principals, board members, and the greater community, are all striving for the same overall vision. And, when it comes to putting those plans into action, schools especially benefit from the habit of consistent performance measurement, which is something a strategic plan can help in ingraining.

For complex, multi-layered institutions such as an educational institute to successfully reach their goals—particularly after being so dramatically impacted by COVID-19—it requires not only proper management of human, budgetary, and time resources, but the creation of high-output teams, engaged and effective staff and teachers, and the consistent monitoring of progress. For schools, a strategic plan provides a north star for deepening a sense of community and knowledge, and breaks down the actionable steps to reach critical goals.

Download the guide ↓

Mary King is a professional writer and researcher based in Toronto. She comes to Envisio with a Masters Degree, where she researched the relationship between the disappearance of urban public spaces, and high level decision-making processes in local governments. For nearly a decade, Mary has worked as a community organizer, promoter, and supportive researcher in a variety of nonprofits and think-tanks, and her favorite area of focus was in connecting local artists with marginalized youth. Since 2017, her writings and research on policy, local governance, and its relationship to public art and public space has been presented at conferences internationally. She has also served as both a conference chair and lead facilitator on professional and academic conferences across Canada on how to better bridge academic research with local change-agents, policy makers, artists, and community members. Envisio’s mission of excellence and trust in the public sector maps onto Mary's interest in local government and community mobilization. She loves working at Envisio because she cares about having well organized, strategic, and transparent public organizations and local governments. Mary is also a creative writer and musician and has been supported in her practice by the Canada Council for the Arts. Her stories can be found in literary journals across Canada.

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Disruption. The new normal. VUCA. Whatever you call it, the truth is the same: The pace of change is rapid and constant. The world that higher education serves today is vastly different than 10 or 20 years ago. “Business as usual” is a luxury few can afford; higher education institutions are asked to prove their worth, redefine their purpose, and respond more quickly to society’s needs.

In this new normal, higher education strategic planning is no longer an empty exercise or a leadership vanity project. It is imperative for each institution to survive . . . and thrive.

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a deliberate, disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an institution is, what it does, and why it does it.

The college or university strategic plan provides guidance for institutional decisions, both long-term and day-to-day, and makes sure that decisions and operations:

• Carry out the institution’s mission, vision, and values
• Comply with mandates and regulations of government, accrediting bodies, etc.
• Keep the institution operationally and fiscally healthy, now and in the future

5 Components of Strategic Planning in Higher Education

The components of every strategic plan will vary according to an institution’s culture and needs but generally include:

• Explanation of the planning process
• Foundational information (an institution’s mission, vision, values)
• What your institution wants to achieve (goals, strategic issues, objectives, etc.)
• How your institution will achieve its goals (strategies, tactics, actions, etc.)
• How your institution will measure success (metrics, KPIs)

Why do strategic planning?

Higher education strategic planning helps an institution focus on its future success. How is the world changing, and how do we need to respond? What opportunities do we have to make a difference? What changes do we need to make today so we’re ready for tomorrow?

It gives an institution an opportunity to reflect on its performance. Is the institution achieving its vision? Living by its mission? Serving students in the ways they need? What should we start doing? Keep doing? Change? Stop doing?

Why is integrated planning important for strategic planning?

Higher education institutions are complex. The success of any initiative—from improving graduation rates to creating a more inclusive environment—requires expertise, time, and work from multiple units. At the same time, each unit has its own activities and work that it’s focusing on. By building relationships across departments, integrated strategic planning prevents duplicate activities (or worse, initiatives that work against each other), creates opportunities for collaboration, and makes sure that time and effort are spent on initiatives that realize the mission. Integrated strategic planning saves an institution’s resources while improving its work.

Integrated planning also helps with a strategic plan’s implementation. An integrated university or college strategic plan reflects the beliefs and experiences of the institution’s stakeholders, motivating people to change and experiment. It’s linked to the budget, so there are resources to implement plan strategies. It’s informed by assessment, so the strategic plan can adapt and stay relevant.

Who does strategic planning?

Strategic planning should involve the input and participation of the entire campus community—both internal stakeholders (faculty, administration, staff, students, alumni) and external stakeholders (community members, employers).

The planning committee or team leads the process. Since strategic planning can be a long, complex process, there may also be additional committees or task forces to tackle different topics or parts of the process.

Planning Committee

• Chair: president, senior-level administrator, or faculty member (depends on the institution)
• Representatives of key stakeholder groups
• Top-level decision makers (provost, VPs/directors of key campus divisions and departments)

When is strategic planning done?

Most strategic plans are cyclical. As one strategic plan nears the end of its horizon (the length of time a plan covers), a new planning process begins for the next strategic plan.

A plan’s horizon depends on the institution and its needs. Most strategic plans cover five to 10 years, but some may cover as few as three and others as long as 20.

If a new president assumes leadership of the institution, the new president will often conduct a new planning process that reflects the president’s priorities.

How is strategic planning done?

The strategic planning process needs to be adapted to an institution’s culture and operations. For example, a tightly controlled top-down process may face challenges in a highly decentralized institution.

Strategic planning processes need to include the following activities and characteristics:

• Communicate the process, purpose, who is involved, and how decisions will be made
• Seek and use feedback from as many stakeholders as possible, both on and off campus
• Scan externally and internally to identify strengths, areas to improve, opportunities, and potential threats
• Prioritize what the institution wants to accomplish
• Outline how the institution will invest its resources (including time and people) to accomplish those goals
• Align resources, day-to-day work, and initiatives across the institution with the plan
• Measure, monitor, and modify the plan as needed

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• Strategic Plan for Education

• Santa Monica College
• Administration

Strategic Plan for Education 2024-2029

A strategic education plan, sometimes referred to as an education master plan, is a comprehensive guiding document presenting the college’s 5-year plan for education program development. The strategic education plan helps inform and drive other foundational plans for the college, including the enrollment management plan, technology plan, facilities plan, staffing plan, and budget priorities. The strategic education plan deeply reflects the college’s mission and vision and is rooted in intensive study of local community and workforce needs as well as a careful assessment of the college’s own strengths and opportunities for growth.

The SMC Strategic Plan for Education 2024-2029 will establish a framework for best serving Santa Monica College students over the next five years, taking into consideration the major demographic, economic, and educational issues facing the SMC community. The plan will be developed through:

• Consultation with SMC’s leadership
• Interviews and focus groups with SMC administrators, faculty members, classified staff, students, and trustees
• Input from residents, businesses, community leaders, and educators
• Extensive review of SMCCD documents, demographic data, and research
• Internal analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT)

SMC has convened a cross-functional Strategic Education Plan Workgroup, supported by the consultancy Kennedy & Co. , to develop the Strategic Plan for Education 2024-2029 during the 2023-24 academic year. To learn more about the strategic plan workgroup and how you can be involved in the planning process, please see the menu below.

Get Involved

Help shape the future of education at Santa Monica College!

Your voice matters in charting SMC's course for the next five years. Faculty, staff, administrators, and students are invited to participate in a broad survey that will help guide SMC's strategic planning process--specifically by informing the Strategic Education Plan Workgroup with your views, concerns, and aspirations for the college. Access the survey below to help the us identify key themes, strengths, and areas needing support as SMC embarks on its education program planning process.

Let SMC benefit from your insight! The survey is for staff , faculty , administrators , students, and community members. 

To share other questions or comments with the Strategic Education Plan Workgroup, please send your email to: [email protected]

• Jason Beardsley Vice President, Academic Affairs
• Teresita Rodriguez Vice President, Enrollment Development
• Mike Tuitasi Vice President, Student Affairs
• Judy Kruger President & CEO, Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce
• Sasha King Interim Dean, Academic Affairs
• Maria Munoz Interim Dean, Equity, Pathways, and Inclusion
• Terry Kamibayashi Assistant Director, Facilities Maintenance
• Jamar London President, Academic Senate and Faculty, Math Department
• Elisa Meyer English Department Chair & Chair of Academic Senate Department Chairs Committee
• Shiela Cordova Design Technology Department Chair, Past Curriculum Committee Chair
• Cindy Ordaz Administrative Assistant II, Operations and CSEA President and Chief Negotiator
• Rachel Demski Curriculum Specialist, Academic Affairs
• Judith Mosher Math Lab Coordinator and CSEA Secretary
• David Duncan Director of Budget and Management, Associated Students

May 2023 SMC Trustees approve contract with consultancy Kennedy & Co.

August 2023 Workgroup membership finalized with DPAC constituent groups.

September 2023 Education plan workgroup kickoff.

September 2023 Kennedy & Co. delivers SMC market research and demographics report.

November 2023 Kennedy & Co. interview 50 SMC faculty, staff, and administrators.

December 2023 Kennedy & Co. delivers interview insights and novel transfer programs report.

December 2023 Campus-wide website & survey launched.

January - June 2024 Additional reports, campus feedback, validation of plan.

Additional timeline milestones through June 2024 to be posted. Additional timeline milestones through June 2024 to be posted.

Throughout the 23-24 year, the consultancy Kennedy & Co. has delivered a series of analytical reports to shed light on education program development opportunities for SMC. Access to Kennedy & Co.'s reports is available to SMC faculty, staff, and administrators through the links below. A brief summary of each report is also provided.

Santa Monica Market Research

Presented to the Strategic Education Plan Workgroup on Nov. 3, 2023

Kennedy & Co.’s market research report offers a careful look at Los Angeles County demographics, job, and industry data, the better to frame SMC’s opportunities for growth in service to the educational needs of a diverse and evolving regional student population. Notably, the report highlights the demographic shift towards a more Hispanic/Latinx population, a sizable gap in higher education attainment among residents, and the growing demand for healthcare and technology-related occupations. The report emphasizes SMC’s need to offer accessible education while tailoring programs to suit the needs of underrepresented communities and the changing job market.

Discovery Insights & Program Demand

Presented to the Strategic Education Plan Workgroup on Dec. 1, 2023

Kennedy & Co.’s second report for SMC includes insights from interviews with over 50 stakeholders whose feedback emphasizes the need to balance the college's historic strength in transfer education with growing demand for career education and a continue push for high-quality wrap-around services. The report identifies five key themes, including the development of SMC's brand and infrastructure to support both transfer and career education in the face of changing demographics, the continued development of more comprehensive and culturally responsive services, the need for more intentional and salient support for the college's online leaners, and, finally, the importance of steady coordination of the strategic plan for education and other key planning documents. Significantly, the consultants also identified areas for improvement in SMC’s data collection and management protocols, particularly for academic program enrollment trends.

The report also analyzed the top twenty largest sectors of regional employer demand for employees possessing a bachelor’s degree or higher. These prospects are meant to inform SMC’s possible program development opportunities in transfer degrees and potentially in stackable certificates leading to transfer in high-demand job markets. The relative strengths and weaknesses of each education market are analyzed so as to help SMC prioritize program opportunities in relation to its own strengths, ambitions, and limitations.

Legacy Program

Presented to the Strategic Education Plan Workgroupon Jan. 31, 2024

In its analysis of SMC’s “legacy” programs, Kennedy & Company evaluates the salient strengths and weaknesses of SMC’s program inventory. The report outlines current and future market and demographic trends to shed light on program demand and enrollment expectations for SMC’s largest programs, fastest growing, and slowest growing programs. Limitations in SMC’s data structure are also noted, indicating a need for improved alignment of enrollment and program data for better tracking of trends over time.

Additional Planning Documents

The archive of updates to Santa Monica College's previous education master plan .

Additional Santa Monica College planning documents .

See also SMC's Equity Plan and Mission, Vision, and Goals statement. 

MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION      |      marylandpublicschools.org

Committed to a transformative path forward in support of every Maryland student

Engagement from a wide range of stakeholders that represent the diversity of the state, creating high-quality learning environments for all students, introducing maryland’s strategic plan to transform education.

The Maryland State Board of Education and Maryland State Department of Education have developed a multiyear Strategic Plan composed of three phases leading up to June 2023. The Strategic Plan anchors the vision, mission, values, priorities, enablers, goals, metrics, and flagship programs, initiatives, and strategies to realize the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future promise of an excellent and equitable education for every student.

Our Mission and Vision

Our mission is to ensure a rigorous and world-class educational experience for every Maryland student, in every neighborhood, that prepares each to be college and career ready, through strategic direction and leadership; policy making and resource allocation; and engagement and advocacy.

We envision Maryland as a system of world-class schools where students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for success in college, career, and life.

Accountability

Transformation.

We will take responsibility for our commitments and maintain open, transparent, and responsive communication on academic, operational, and financial policies and outcomes.

We will partner and engage with diverse stakeholders and decision makers in the design, implementation, and evaluation of our policies, programs, and actions.

We will do whatever it takes to eliminate barriers to success and provide the necessary resources and supports to ensure that every Maryland student achieves at the highest level.

We will ensure a rigorous and engaging educational environment for all students defined by high expectations, research-based instructional practices, and highly effective, culturally responsive educators.

We will pursue best-in-class outcomes through bold, impactful actions to ensure that every student has the tools, resources, supports, and opportunities they need to thrive.

“We are committed to moving with urgency to actualize the bold, transformative change our students deserve.”

Strategic Plan Timeline of Phases

The Maryland State Board of Education and the Maryland State Department of Education envisioned the development and release of the Strategic Plan in three phases that spanned from October 2022 to June 2023.

October 2022 Release Mission, Vision, Values, Priorities and Enablers

Extending from November 2021 to October 2022, this phase focused on gaining initial input from a wide range of stakeholders representing the diversity of the state. Through multiple methods, from a statewide survey to roundtables and listening sessions, to the State Superintendent shadowing students in schools throughout the state, we learned what mattered most to our communities to transform public education in Maryland. The feedback we received helped shape the Strategic Plan’s foundational elements, specifically the vision, mission, values, priorities, and enablers.

February 2023 Release Goals and Metrics

Between October 2022 and February 2023, the Maryland State Board and Department of Education continued to engage with our communities to refine the Phase 1 elements of the Strategic Plan, and develop the goals and metrics linked to each of the priorities and enablers outlined in Phase 1. Engagement took the form of regional data walks with stakeholders, ongoing student shadows, and a new series of roundtables and community events. The goals and metrics released in this phase provide insight on our direction as we moved into Phase 3.

June 2023 Release Targets* and Identify Flagship Programs, Initiatives, and Strategies

Between February and June 2023, we engaged with stakeholders using previous methods and planning charettes to identify flagship programs, initiatives, and strategies, as well as set targets* to achieve the goals developed in Phase 2. This work was informed by best-in-class research and involved in-depth conversations with education experts, practitioners, and decision makers from early childhood to K-12 education and from the business community to institutions of higher education. The complete Strategic Plan, released in June 2023, anchors the vision, mission, values, priorities, enablers, goals, metrics, targets*, and the flagship programs, initiatives, and strategies to the Blueprint’s promise of an excellent and equitable education for every child.

*Final targets will be released by late Fall 2023 using the Spring 2023 Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program results

Presentation Spotlight:

Ready to read charette – ijamsville, md.

The Maryland State Board of Education and Maryland State Department of Education hosted an in person Strategic Planning Charette with Frederick, Washington, Carroll, Howard, and Montgomery County Public Schools. This charette focused on the Ready to Read strategic plan priority and provided an opportunity for district staff, principals, educators, and community partners to provide input on the flagship programs, strategies and initiatives that will accelerate students’ reading readiness. Stakeholders learned about the Strategic Plan phases and engaged in collaborative planning that incorporated their expertise and ideas, enabling participants to become mutual authors of the plan.

Regional Presentation and Gallery Walk – Eastern Shore Maryland

The State Board of Education and the Maryland State Department of Education presented the Strategic Plan and Engagement Report – Phase 1 at the Eastern Shore Strategic Plan Regional Presentation and Data Walk. State Superintendent of Schools Mohammed Choudhury and MSDE staff facilitated an interactive gallery walk with stakeholders to engage in dialogue around the specific priorities and enablers outlined in the strategic plan and data related to Eastern Shore counties.

View the Presentation

Strategic Plan Engagement Report

The Engagement Report describes the journey to engage Maryland’s diverse stakeholders as mutual authors of the strategic plan. Unprecedented and innovative engagement methods were used to gain stakeholder input on each of the three phases of the strategic planning process. The key takeaways of each method are outlined in detail in the Engagement Report. This report is a companion piece to the Strategic Plan guidebook, and they should be read together for an in-depth understanding of the plan’s content and how it originated.

Thank you for transforming Maryland with us! Download the Strategic Plan.

Chicago Public Schools kicks off community forums on upcoming strategic plan

Chicago Public Schools is mapping out its goals for the next five years and wants feedback from the public.

The plan — which will be finalized this summer — will focus on three priorities: how to improve students’ daily experiences in the classroom, staffing and funding, and collaborating more closely with school communities, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez told a crowd of about 40 people at Crane High School on Monday night for the first of seven community forums. Many of the attendees were district staff. Others were parents, community advocates, and representatives from outside organizations.

The plan gained some attention in the winter when the Chicago Board of Education announced it would move away from the school choice system. The board said it would outline a new approach in the strategic plan, and specific changes would depend on community feedback.

Upcoming community forums

• 9-11 a.m. April 20 (virtual)
• 6-8 p.m. April 23 at Collins High School, 1313 S Sacramento Dr.
• 6-8 p.m. April 24 at Englewood STEM High School, 6835 S Normal Blvd.
• 6-8 p.m. May 1 at Corliss High School, 821 E 103rd St.
• 6-8 p.m. May 2 at Roosevelt High School, 3436 W Wilson Ave.
• 10 a.m.-noon May 8 at Richards High School, 5009 S Laflin St.

But school choice didn’t come up at Monday’s session. Martinez told Chalkbeat the district will ask families their opinions on school choice and capital planning in May, because those are “big topics.” The next three meetings this month will focus more on the daily school experience and funding, though parents also can share their thoughts about school choice, he said. Martinez said he’s already heard from Spanish-speaking parents who have struggled to navigate the GoCPS system.

As Martinez went over the district’s priorities, he highlighted some successes, including a recent growth in reading and math .

“We are building a five-year plan so this continues, and we continue to accelerate,” Martinez told the crowd.

Martinez, who was hired in 2021, established a three-year blueprint in the fall of 2022. The district is developing the next five-year strategic plan at a moment of big change.

Chicago is holding its first school board elections this fall and candidates are starting to emerge . In January 2025, a hybrid board with 10 elected members and 11 members appointed by the mayor will be sworn into office.

Since taking office a year ago, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointed school board has voted to remove police officers from schools in addition to passing the resolution to shift away from school choice. Both moves prompted a response from state lawmakers who are debating bills that could prevent those changes .

District officials have also rolled out a new budgeting formula that provides set staffing levels to all schools and additional discretionary spending based on need. They’ve also cut bus service for general education students and struggled to comply with providing transportation to students with disabilities who are legally entitled to it .

Martinez and other district officials spent the first hour of Monday’s meeting talking about the vision for the district over the past few years, as well as the feedback officials have collected so far through other community meetings and focus groups, such as on how to ensure the success of Black students. So far, that feedback has run the gamut, Martinez said, including asking the district to better prepare students for life after high school, focus more on supporting students’ mental health, provide more funding for building repairs and transportation, and include families in decision making.

In the second hour, attendees rotated between three tables. At each, CPS staff talked about their work — such as changing the funding formula for school budgets or their desire to expand dual language programming — and then took questions from members of the community.

At one table, which focused in part on funding, most of the roughly 15 people seated were CPS staff. One of the few community members was Catherine Jones, a longtime education advocate on the West Side who asked if the district was still considering enrollment under its new funding formula. Budget Director Mike Sitkowski told Jones that the new formula would “guarantee that even the smallest school has a baseline” of staff.

“Which is good,” Jones responded.

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At another table, parent Alexandra Beltrand, a mother of three CPS kids, asked if the district could expand dual language programs.

By 8 p.m. — the scheduled end of the meeting — attendees had only rotated tables twice, and attendees at at least two of the tables had just a few minutes to ask questions after hearing from CPS staff. Attendees were encouraged to write down their questions and feedback so that staff could review and record it later.

“We’re going to see what worked today, what didn’t — so for example, we didn’t have as much time to have more rotations,” Martinez said. “We’re even wondering, do we start having even more groupings instead of three?”

Still, Beltrand said the meeting was helpful. After the meeting ended, she chatted one-on-one with staff from the district’s Office of Cultural and Language Education.

“I felt heard,” Beltrand said.

People interested in attending the meetings can register online here.

Becky Vevea contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at [email protected] .

Lawmakers could revive a plan to let all parents use Education Scholarship Accounts on classes, tutoring, extracurricular activities, and more.

Purdue Polytechnic High School Lab School offers personalized curriculum to around 20 students while getting support from the charter school network.

The plan — which will be finalized this summer — will prioritize improving students’ daily experiences in the classroom, addressing staffing and funding, and collaborating more closely with school communities.

Whether a school is following district discipline rules “is an indicator of the climate of a school,” Superintendent Alex Marrero said.

“There’s still time to see if we can get this worked out,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said of her push to include New York City’s mayoral control governance system in the budget.

As a second grade teacher, Precious Allen teaches every subject to her students, but emphasizes science, engineering, and math with hopes of inspiring her students to pursue those fields.

Certification of Health IT

Health information technology advisory committee (hitac), health equity, hti-1 final rule, information blocking, interoperability, patient access to health records, clinical quality and safety, health it and health information exchange basics, health it in health care settings, health it resources, laws, regulation, and policy, onc funding opportunities, onc hitech programs, privacy, security, and hipaa, scientific initiatives, standards & technology, usability and provider burden, draft 2024-2030 federal health it strategic plan.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), released the draft 2024-2030 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan for public comment. The draft plan was developed in collaboration with more than 25 federal organizations that regulate, purchase, develop, and use health IT to help deliver care and improve patient health. 

2024-2030 Draft Federal Health IT Strategic Plan [PDF - 2.3 MB]

The draft plan defines a set of goals, objectives, and strategies the federal government will pursue to improve health experiences and outcomes for individuals, populations, and communities while also promoting opportunities for improving health equity, advancing scientific discovery and innovation, and modernizing the nation’s public health infrastructure. The draft plan also places an emphasis on addressing the policy and technology components essential for securely catering to the diverse data requirements of all health IT users. 

The final 2024-2030 strategic plan will serve as a roadmap for federal agencies and a catalyst for alignment outside the federal government. Federal organizations will be able to utilize the final plan to prioritize resources, align and coordinate efforts across agencies, signal priorities to the private sector, and benchmark and assess progress over time. 

ONC encourages review and comments on the draft plan. Please submit your comments via our feedback form . Attachments should be in Microsoft Word, Excel, PPT, or Adobe PDF format. The comment period is open for 60 days and the deadline for submission is May 28, 2024 at 11:59:59 PM ET .  

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What to Know About Biden’s New Student Debt Relief Plan

The proposal would affect nearly 30 million people and would target groups that have had hardships in repaying their loans.

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Biden Announces New Plan for Student Debt Relief

President biden announced a large-scale effort to help pay off federal student loans for more than 20 million borrowers..

Today, I’m proud to announce five major actions to continue to relieve student debt for more than 30 million Americans since I started my administration. And starting this fall, we plan to deliver up to $20,000 in interest relief to over 20 million borrowers and full forgiveness for millions more. [applause] I will never stop to deliver student debt relief and hardworking Americans. And it’s only in the interest of America that we do it. And again, it’s for the good of our economy that’s growing stronger and stronger, and it is, by freeing millions of Americans from this crushing debt of student debt. It means they can finally get on with their lives instead of being put — their lives being put on hold.

By Erica L. Green

Reporting from Washington

President Biden released details on Monday of his new student loan debt forgiveness plan for nearly 30 million borrowers.

The proposal still needs to be finalized and will have to withstand expected legal challenges, like the ones that doomed Mr. Biden’s first attempt to wipe out student debt on a large scale last year.

Biden administration officials said they could begin handing out some of the debt relief — including the canceling of up to $20,000 in interest — as soon as this fall if the new effort moves forward after the required, monthslong comment period.

Here’s what is known so far about the program:

Who would benefit from the new plan?

The plan would reduce payments for 25 million borrowers and erase all debt for more than four million Americans. Altogether, 10 million borrowers would see debt relief of $5,000 or more, officials said.

The groups affected include:

— Borrowers whose loan balances have ballooned because of interest would have up to $20,000 of their interest balance canceled. The plan would waive the entire interest balance for borrowers considered “low- and middle-income” who are enrolled in the administration’s income-driven repayment plans.

The interest forgiveness would be a one-time benefit, but would be the largest relief valve in the plan. The administration estimates that of the 25 million borrowers that could see relief under this waiver, 23 million would see their entire interest balance wiped out.

— Borrowers who are eligible for, but have not yet applied for, loan forgiveness under existing programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness or the administration’s new repayment program, called SAVE, would have their debts automatically canceled.

— Borrowers with undergraduate student debt who started repaying their loans more than 20 years ago, and graduate students who started paying their debt 25 or more years ago, would have their debts canceled.

— Borrowers who enrolled in programs or colleges that lost federal funding because they cheated or defrauded students would have their debts waived. Students who attended institutions or programs that left them with mounds of debt but bleak earning or job prospects would also be eligible for relief.

— Borrowers who are experiencing “hardship” paying back their loans because of medical or child care costs would also be eligible for some type of relief. The administration has not yet determined how these borrowers would be identified, but is considering automatic forgiveness for those at risk of defaulting.

How is this different from the last plan?

Mr. Biden initially tried to grant $400 billion in debt relief for 40 million borrowers by using the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003, or HEROES Act, which the administration argued allowed the government to waive student debt during a national emergency like the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Supreme Court blocked that move , saying that Mr. Biden had exceeded his authority.

The new plan would forgive some or all loan debt for nearly 30 million borrowers under the Higher Education Act, the federal law that regulates student loan and grant programs. By targeting specific groups of borrowers — instead of offering broad loan forgiveness — the administration believes it can act within the narrower confines of that law.

The Biden administration said lawyers for the White House and the Education Department studied last year’s Supreme Court ruling and designed the new program to make sure it did not violate the principles laid out by the justices.

Still, there could be questions about whether the borrowers under the latest plan would be considered “limited,” as the Supreme Court said the Higher Education Act requires, or whether the administration again overstepped its authority.

What’s the timeline?

The new plan still needs to be published in the Federal Register, which then will start a monthslong public comment period. Administration officials have said they hoped some of the provisions would begin going into effect in “early fall.”

That could leave the debt relief plan unresolved as voters go to the polls in November to choose between Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.

But Biden campaign officials hope the latest effort will help rally voters who were sorely disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision last year.

Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent, covering President Biden and his administration. More about Erica L. Green

Our Coverage of the 2024 Election

Presidential Race

The start of Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan  drew intense security, smothering media coverage and loud demonstrations to a dingy courthouse that will be the unlikely center of American politics for the next six weeks.

President Biden will kick off a three-day tour of Pennsylvania , a crucial battleground state, with a speech that focuses on taxes and aims to contrast his policies with those of Trump.

Trump leaned heavily on major Republican donors  in March as he sought to close the financial gap separating him from Biden, new federal filings showed.

Vice-Presidential Calculations: As Trump sifts through potential running mates, he has peppered some advisers and associates with a direct question: Which Republican could best help him raise money ?

Embracing the Jan. 6 Rioters:  Trump initially disavowed the attack on the Capitol, but he is now making it a centerpiece of his campaign .

Mobilizing the Left: Amid the war in Gaza, the pro-Palestinian movement has grown into a powerful, if disjointed, political force in the United States. Democrats are feeling the pressure .

On a Collision Course:  As president, Trump never trusted the intelligence community. His antipathy has only grown since he left office, with potentially serious implications should he return to power .

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Biden's new student loan forgiveness plan could help 30 million borrowers. Here's who would qualify.

By Aimee Picchi

Edited By Anne Marie Lee

Updated on: April 10, 2024 / 11:28 AM EDT / CBS News

President Joe Biden once again is trying to deliver widespread student debt forgiveness, with a new plan unveiled on Monday that could help about 30 million borrowers erase some or all of their college loans. 

The latest attempt at broad debt relief comes less than a year after the Supreme Court blocked Biden's previous attempt to help student borrowers, when the court's  June 2023 ruling denied up to $20,000 in forgiveness to roughly 40 million Americans. 

Biden, who had made student loan relief a major campaign pledge, unveiled the new plan on Monday, describing it as potentially "life changing" for millions of Americans. About 43 million people are carrying $1.7 trillion in student debt, a burden that some borrowers and their advocates say hampers their ability to buy a home or achieve other financial milestones. 

"While a college degree still is a ticket to the middle class, that ticket is becoming much too expensive. Much too expensive," Biden said an event at Madison College in Madison, Wisconsin. "The ability for working and middle-class folks to repay their student loans has become so burdensome that a lot can't repay it for even decades after being in school."

Here's what to know about Biden's new plan and who would qualify. 

How is this plan different from the one struck down by the Supreme Court?

The new plan relies on a different law to provide debt relief to student borrowers. 

The previous plan relied on the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act, or HEROES Act, a pandemic-era stimulus package. The Supreme Court ruled that law didn't provide the Biden administration with the authority to forgive student debt. 

The new plan turns to an older law, the Higher Education Act, which allows the Secretary of Education to "compromise, waive or release" federal student loans. It's through this mechanism that the Biden administration is tackling its new debt relief program. 

Who will qualify for debt forgiveness under the new plan?

There are 5 major groups of borrowers who could benefit under the new plan. 

• 2.5 million borrowers who have been in repayment for 20 years or more. 

The Biden administration said people with only undergraduate debt could qualify for forgiveness if they first began repaying their loans at least 20 years ago, or on or before July 1, 2005. Borrowers with graduate school debt would qualify if they first began repaying their loans 25 years ago, or on or before July 1, 2000. 

Borrowers don't have to be enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan to qualify, the White House said. Both direct loans and direct consolidation loans would be covered.

• People with debt who attended "low-financial-value programs"

College is supposed to provide its graduates with the skills to achieve higher-income careers, but there are some programs that have left people in debt but without a marketable degree, such as some offered by for-profit colleges like the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges .

The new plan would cancel student debt for loans from colleges or programs that lost their eligibility to participate in the Federal student aid program or were denied recertification because they cheated students, the White House said. Borrowers who also attended colleges that don't provide "sufficient value," such as leaving grads without the ability to earn more than a high school grad, would also be eligible for relief. 

• People experiencing hardship in paying back their loans.

Borrowers who are experiencing hardship that hampers their ability to repay their loans could also qualify for forgiveness. Although the White House didn't specify the financial threshold for qualifying under this pathway, it said this could cover borrowers at high risk of defaulting on their student loans or who are grappling with issues like medical debt.

• 25 million borrowers whose balances ballooned because of interest.

Some borrowers have seen their balances grow due to a financial issue called "negative amortization," in which a person's loan balance keeps growing despite their consistently making payments. Under the plan, roughly 25 million people who have experienced this issue could get up to $20,000 of their interest canceled. 

• 2 million low- and middle-income borrowers who qualify for forgiveness but haven't applied.

The plan would also provide debt relief for about 2 million low- and middle-income borrowers who qualify for programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness or income-driven repayment plans but haven't applied for them.

"No application will be needed for borrowers to receive this relief if the plan is implemented as proposed," the White House said.

What are the next steps to getting the plan approved? 

The Education Department said it plans to release a formal proposal in the "coming months." That would usually be followed by a public comment period of 60 days. Then if the rule is finalized by November 1, it would usually take effect the following July — in this case, July 2025.

But the Higher Education Act authorizes the education secretary to fast-track rules for "early implementation" in some cases. The Biden administration recently  used that power  to accelerate student loan cancellation offered through a new federal repayment plan. Invoking that authority could allow Biden to start canceling debt later this year.

When could the new plan go into effect?

That's not known yet because the plan has to get pass some additional hurdles before becoming effective, as noted above. Asked by reporters when U.S. student loan recipients might see their interest balances canceled, officials said the forgiveness could happen starting "early this fall."

Could the plan be challenged in court?

Yes, conservative opponents are expected to challenge Biden's plan in court.

Republicans have repeatedly fought Biden's plan for student loan cancellation, saying it's an unfair benefit shouldered by taxpayers who repaid their loans or didn't go to college. Opponents say the Supreme Court was clear that widespread loan cancellation must come from Congress.

Separately, seven states, led by Missouri, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging Biden's  SAVE Plan, an income-based repayment program that was introduced last year. The new lawsuit largely mirrors another suit  filed last month  by Republican attorneys general in 11 states, led by Kansas.

The suit doesn't directly challenge Biden's newest plan for cancellation, but its architect, Missouri's attorney general, separately threatened to bring action against that plan, too.

If Biden's plan faces a lawsuit, courts could order the administration to halt cancellation until legal questions are sorted out. That scenario could leave the plan on hold beyond the November presidential election. Even if it survives legal challenges, a Donald Trump victory would spell almost certain doom for Biden's plan.

— With reporting by the Associated Press.

• Student Debt
• Student Loan

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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