District Strategic Plan-Technology Plan Gap Analysis

I was recently asked, as part of my MASSP, "Pathway to Leadership" program, to do a review and gap analysis of our Escanaba School District Strategic Plan and Technology Plan.  The following is my analysis of the documents as they compare to the EnGauge Framework tool.

My initial review of our plans revealed a collaborative work in progress.  Both plans involved the unified efforts of various district stakeholders, brought together for the purpose of re-evaluating our school district's mission, vision, and goals, so that they directly reflect the ideas and needs of our students, parents and staff.  The Escanaba School's Strategic and Technology plans are documents that are continuously reviewed by our District School Improvement Committee (consisting of the Superintendent, principals, teachers, parents, students, and community members), as well as final approval and adoption by our Board of Education.

The Escanaba School's Strategic Plan addresses four key areas, including, improving student achievement, effectively communicating with all stakeholders, providing safe facilities, and maintaining fiscal responsibility district wide.  It was the focus of the District School Improvement Team to ensure that each of these goals be measurable, to determine whether or not we were successfully moving toward achievement of that goal.  This strategic plan is re-evaluated every three years under the unified efforts of the stakeholder group, to measure it's progress and re-align the goals to the current district needs.

The Escanaba School's Technology Plan was developed in a similar fashion as the Strategic Plan.  The District School Improvement Committee, under the guidance of the Superintendent, Michele Lemire, and Robert Viau (District Technology Director), developed our 2012-2015 Tech plan by aligning with the needs and goals as established in the Strategic Plan.  The tech plan is guided by the idea that all Escanaba students should acquire the skills needed to work, live, and learn in a technological society.  It is the goal of the plan to prepare our administrators, teachers, and students to access, interpret, analyze, and communicate information successfully in both work and life applications.  This Technology Plan provides a detailed overview, by academic level, and determined by social and academic achievement needs, to reflect the hardware, software, process needs, and training opportunities that will ensure successful progress in 21st Century classrooms and schools.  The Escanaba School District has made the commitment to outfit and maintain classrooms that utilize state of the art Apple computers, ceiling-mounted digital projectors, document cameras, and either MacBook Pro laptops or ipads for each teacher.

Utilizing the "EnGauge Framework" tool to evaluate our current educational technology plans, helps to identify the direction of our technology plans as it relates to meeting the needs of all learners and increasing student achievement on local and state assessments.  The framework revealed to me that our district is not only on the right track by providing our students the skills they need to succeed in the 21st century, but that we are technological leaders among our local counterparts.  The opportunities we can provide to our students give them that "one step ahead" that they need as they head out into the competitive college and career market.  The EnGauge Framework helped to identify our areas of excellence, as well as our deficiencies.  One of our key areas of excellence involves communication with our district stakeholders.  With the use of a multitude of mediums such as, email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, PowerSchool, BLI Messaging System, Edmodo, and many more, we are able to effectively communicate all information and activities to our community quickly and easily.  Long gone are the days of waiting for the student's report card to get information from the school system.

Another area of strength is the variety and amount of technological opportunities that we provide to our students to enhance their academic needs.  Every classroom contains an Apple computer, short throw digital projector, document camera, and interactive Aver pens for our whiteboards.  All district teachers have been provided either a MacBook Pro or an ipad for their instructional needs in the classroom.  After undergoing a major renovation of our Junior/Senior High School facility, we now have an all encompassing wireless system for both staff and student use.  We encourage the use of personal electronic devices in school for educational purposes, as directed by our teaching staff.  By having an open access wireless system, the students are able to use their devices for research, presentations, and processing needs.

The framework also helped to identify areas of deficiency in our district technology plan.  The framework's category of "Educator Proficiency"showed there is a further need to offer staff additional training as we continue to move forward with the use of 21st Century technologies.  Some of our staff have embraced their "new" technologies, that were made possible with our recent bond proposal, while others struggle with change and how to effectively adopt them into their daily instructional strategies.  Our Junior and Senior High Schools are becoming look ahead with offering our students opportunities in STEM related courses in the upcoming year.  This will require additional opportunities for professional learning sessions for our staff, as well as additional tech support as we move forward.

It is always a goal of our district to continuously work toward closing the achievement gap between both socio-economic groups and gender groups.  It is the hope of the district that by providing the technological tools to students, a variety of learning styles will be positively affected and will therefore, increase student achievement of all students.  An area of concern with this involves the further opening of the segregation gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots".  We live in a struggling economic community with increasing unemployment levels.  By allowing students to bring personal electronic devices, while others do not have them, we are increasing the gap between levels.  We will need to continue to even the playing field between these two levels during the school day, to allow for the success of all of our students.

It will be vital, as we move forward, to continuously review both our District Strategic Plan and Technology Plan to determine the training and technological needs of staff and students, to enhance the instructional strategies used in classrooms and increase student learning and success.  To view our current Escanaba Schools Strategic and Technology Plans - please go the Escanaba Schools website (www.eskymos.com).