District Finalizing Its Roadmap Of The Future

The Washingtonville Central School District has been working to develop a strategic mission, vision, and core values this week, after gathering input from the community and hosting planning meetings with its administrative team, Board of Education members, and parents.

The process began in June with the District requesting feedback from the residents of Washingtonville through a community survey. Results were compiled and brought to a series of three meetings on Monday, August 14, and Tuesday, August 15. Facilitating the process and the meetings was Blueprint for Excellence© Strategic Planning Service.

A total of 392 people participated. Blueprint’s Kevin McGowan said by industry standards it was an excellent level of participation. Based on the community input, the District was able to organize people’s feedback into three priority areas – The Student Experience, Academic Excellence and Community Connection.

The Student Experience:

• Behavior and bullying
• Social emotional learning
• Mental health support
• Safety
• Extracurricular, athletic and arts opportunities
• Equity
• Student voice
• Restorative practices

Academic Excellence:

• Class size
• Individualized supports
• High quality staffing
• Life skills
• High standards for all
• Accountability
• Equity
• Critical thinking

Community Connection:

• Communication
• Events and activities
• Open and trusting relationship
• Changing community
• Resource distribution
• Equity
• Advocacy
• Parent workshops

On Monday, in the first meeting, after discussing the priority areas, administrators and board members developed a first draft of a mission statement and a vision statement. From those drafts, they also developed a set of core values. Parents joined them in the second meeting that night to discuss and provide their perspective of the draft documents. 

Representatives from Washingtonville High School, Washingtonville Middle School, Little Britain, Taft, and Round Hill delivered Five Minutes of Fame presentations to give everyone an understanding of our schools' accomplishments. Administrators, including the superintendent, then discussed administrative topics such as transportation, technology, human resources, curriculum and instruction, and pupil personnel services.

The presentations explained areas that the schools and district offices are doing well, their points of pride, projects they are working on or projects they are considering working on; and what their hopes and dreams are for their departments.

On Tuesday, the administrators began developing action plan steps as well as assigning personnel to the action steps and assigning a timeframe to perform each of the action steps. 

After a thorough review by administrators over the coming weeks, the district’s mission statement, vision statement and core values will be finalized and provided to the community.

“Developing mission and vision statements, along with core values for our school district, in conjunction with our community is an important step at this time,” Superintendent Dr. Larry Washington said. “We will then continue to build upon this roadmap by putting more steps in place so this work continues to grow and reflect the needs of the people of Washingtonville.”