Strategic Plan Update
Every year the Hortonville Area School District invites community and staff members to collaborate and review the district’s strategic plans. This year the team decided to categorize the district’s initiatives and develop four new strands; Closing the Achievement Gap, Community Engagement, Personalized Learning with Technology, and Safety. Administrators, teachers, and support staff formed goals for each strand and are diligently working towards reaching those goals during the 2015-16 school year. Below is a list of the four strategic plan goals along with action steps being taken toward reaching these goals.
Closing the Achievement Gap
In the 2015-16 school year HASD is focusing on Closing the Achievement. The goal of this team is to reduce the learning gap for special needs children by 3% by;
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Bringing special education students into the regular education classroom more frequently. Our district philosophy of getting students access to grade-level instruction is shifting and students are definitely in the classroom at a higher rate (when developmentally appropriate).
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Improving HASD’s Assistive Technology plan. The district has created an assistive technology team to improve the access and use of technology tools to help special needs children reach higher levels of learning. This team is actively seeking best practice and implementing new strategies and tools for students.
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Creating systems of identification and intervention for students who struggle to meet standards is improving. Our process for response to intervention (RTI) is showing impressive results in progress monitoring data. According to Chris Hansen, Director of Learning, “In short, the district is seeing struggling students make gains.”
Community Engagement
The Community Engagement strand focuses primarily on improving interactions with the communities in the district. The group has developed specific goals;
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HASD will increase by 10% the amount of content regarding HASD activities submitted for the purpose of public knowledge and awareness of our school district.
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HASD will increased by 10% the number of people who know about HASD activities.
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HASD district leaders will evaluate ten events regarding why people attend activities to improve engagement in future events.
To successfully reach these goals, this team plans to develop relationships with regional media contacts and community leaders by showcasing district news, encourage HASD staff to submit their newsworthy events, develop business partnerships, develop an intranet site and showcase celebrations to service or professional organizations. The HASD Communication Council is also holding an Education Expo on April 28th, 2016. Check the Education Expo Facebook page for continuous updates.
Personalized Learning with Technology
By the end of the 2016-17 school year those involved in the Personalized Learning with Technology strand have three main goals;
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At least 25% of graduating participated in personalized learning opportunities by completing a as measured by survey responses and counselor reports.
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At least 25% of graduating participated in personalized learning opportunities by completing an as measured by survey responses and counselor reports.
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At least 25% of participated in personalized learning opportunities by completing with sufficient access to the appropriate equipment and servicesas measured by survey responses.
This team has made incredible progress so far this year. They have established a Digital Learning Advisory Team that includes area experts, defined HASD digital learning needs, researched best practice solutions and interviewed industry standard online course solution providers. The next steps towards attaining these goals is to test online course providers with demo accounts and choose the best vendor and update related HASD policies.
Safety Strand (Physical and Emotional)
The safety strand involves two categories, physical and emotional. The Physical Safety plan defines steps to deal with a crisis situation when it takes place while the emotional component of the safety strand addresses how to follow up with a traumatic event’s after affects. The goals of this team are;
1. By the end of the 2015-2016 school year, a comprehensive action plan will be developed on safety to continually improve the district’s safety protocols and plan. So far the District Safety Team has met regularly this year, attended training, conducted drills and analyzed the current safety plan and identified where it needs updates.
2. By the end of the 2015-2016 school year, a comprehensive plan for positive youth development (mental health wellness) will be implemented within the Hortonville Area School District. In an effort to reach this goal, a student mental health screener has been implemented at the middle and high school, student training/peer leadership was implemented at the High School to provide mental wellness support for students and most of the HASD staff have been QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) trained.
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