Manchester Community Schools launches strategic planning process

The Board of Education and the Administration of Manchester Community Schools is launching a new initiative to guide the district through a 3-5 year Strategic Plan. The purpose of this initiative is to help them develop new goals and strategies for continuing to offer an excellent education for their students, while using scarce public education resources in the most effective and efficient way. 

Stakeholder feedback will be an important part of the planning process. Community members, parents, students, teachers, and all district staff members will have the opportunity to give input on the strengths of the district, opportunities for improvement, barriers for implementation, and their vision for the district. Superintendent Cherie Vannatter stated, “We are meeting with invited community groups on May 23, 1-8 pm,” and “Surveys will be sent out to others at a later date.”

 Stakeholder input, along with essential district data, will provide the basis for the district to choose approximately five priority goals to be implemented over the next three to five years.

According to Vannatter, the benefits of the strategic planning process are many. Most notable are:

• It provides integrated, important input from community and staff
• It presents a succinct and graphic picture of the district’s current status
• It sets focused strategic goals that identify target areas to improve student achievement
• It clearly delineates the role of the Board of Education and the superintendent/staff in strategic planning
• It uses data to set goals and make important decisions
• It helps identify areas to allocate increasingly scarce resources
• It aligns Board priorities with school improvement processes

Debbie Stair, Board Development Manager from the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB) will work with Manchester Community Schools for the next three months to complete the strategic plan. Stair said, “Manchester Community Schools and MASB have worked together to design a customized process that ensures broad stakeholder involvement and will result in an effective strategic plan implementation.”

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by Fritz Swanson

Fritz Swanson has written for The Believer, the Christian Science Monitor, Print Magazine, McSweeney's, Esopus, LSA Magazine, and The Mid-American Review. He serves as a trustee on the Manchester District Library Board. He's the designer and publisher of The Manchester Mirror.

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