Schools' Strategic Plan Accepted — But More Work Ahead

The Melrose School Committee voted Tuesday night to accept the district's five-year strategic plan, on two conditions — the committee's approval of action plans developed later this summer, and the committee agreeing to work on adding more specific goals and priorities to the plan at its next meeting on July 13.

The committee voted 6-1 to accept the plan, pending the committee's approval of action plans at a later date.

When the strategic plan was first presented to the committee last week, committee members voiced concerns about the broad goals that were developed, which have corresponding "measures of success" that provide more specific achievements related to each goal. Superintendent Joe Casey said that the strategic plan would ostensibly used each summer to develop actions plans for the coming school year, with those action plans detailing how the district plans to meet the plan's benchmarks and move towards meeting the plan's goals.

Mayor Rob Dolan moved to amend the vote before the committee Tuesday night, stating that the committee would approve the strategic plan pending the committee's approvals of the action plans, which Casey said should be brought to the committee at the second meeting in July.

Dolan said the strategic plan has "a lot of positive aspects to it," but that he could not take a final vote "without an action plan that articulates specific goals, approved by this board, that hold the community, individual teachers, department heads, as well as this committee accountable to meet those goals." By approving the strategic plan pending approval of the forthcoming action plans, Dolan said the committee can at least endorse what's written in the plan so far, but hold off on final approval.

Dolan's amendment passed by a 6-1 vote, with the sole 'no' vote coming from committee member Carrie Kourkoumelis, who also voted against the final vote accepting the strategic plan pending the action plans, and who said that the strategic plan should be tabled and held until the committee works on it further and develops "clear goals that are easily graspable.

"Today I heard from a member of the site council whose concern was that this was unveiled a week ago and that with the time frame here, for all of the excellent content, this is an unfocused document that still needs a lot of work," Kourkoumelis said. "(It's) poorly worded without clear goals, the process itself was flawed in the commentary of some and some were excluded from the process. A lot of people felt that we paid $15,000 for this process and, as such, we should have an exemplary document. This document is not in finished form."

Kourkoumelis made a motion to table the strategic plan; no one seconded her motion and it did not come to a vote.

Dolan responded to Kourkoumelis, reiterating that his amendment allows final approval of the plan only once the committee also approves the action plans at a future date.

"What we're saying (by voting to approve) is 'we like the content,'" he said. "There's holes, it's not perfect, but let's move forward to the next stage, which are the goals in the action plan."

Committee member J.D. LaRock, who last week questioned the broad-based goals in the current plan, said that he was "close" to wanting to table the plan, but ultimately refrained from seconding Kourkoumelis' motion because "I want this process to go forward," noting that the schools' principal have been eager to develop action plans for their schools.

"I would say that while I think the mayor's motion will benefit this whole process, the one thing it doesn't necessarily address for me is my feeling that there's a place in the strategic plan to get more concrete about district goals," LaRock said.

In light of that, LaRock asked Casey whether it would be possible for committee members to meet with the school district administrators and work on making a "slight addition" to the strategic plan in which administrators and committee members could "translate" the broad goals into more specific goals, such as with respect to student support, lowering out-of-district placement costs for students who need specialized educational support.

"In the end, I see it as not much more than a couple pages of material and no excising of any materials already in the plan," he said, adding later, "For all my concerns, having reading some of the prior (strategic plans), I think this is better. Far better. I would like to push it a tiny bit more, while moving the process forward."

Committee member Christine Casatelli agreed with LaRock, adding that regarding the concern over the perceived lack of prioritization in the strategic plan, she was satisfied with Future Management Systems, Inc., which the district hired last September to develop the plan, not enumerating priorities for Melrose Public Schools.

"I don't want a consulting firm to set our priorities — it's the School Committee who puts their fingerprints all over (the plan)," Casatelli said. "It's not where we want it to be right now. We need to shepherd it and get it to where we want it to be."

Casey likened LaRock's suggestion to a "bridge document" that would fill in a possible perceived gap between the strategic plan's goals and the forthcoming action plans and suggested that the two School Committee members on the strategic plan's steering committee — Casatelli and Chairwoman Margaret Driscoll — along with LaRock join the administrative team in developing such a document.

Casatelli responded that she believed that the steering portion of the process is over and that all seven committee members should take part in the process, a sentiment supported by the rest of the committee.

After some wrangling over whether the committee should hold a special meeting to develop those more specific goals, where the meeting should be held and what kind of meeting it should be — and Casey reminding the committee members that some administrators were taking their end of the school year vacations — the committee ultimately decided to tackle the issue at its July 13 meeting, keeping other items on the agenda to a minimum to allow as much time as possible to delve into the question of what specific goals and priorities should be added to the strategic plan.