Following a nearly yearlong process to implement new models and garner community input, the Bulloch County school district has unveiled a plan that will guide students and teachers through 2020.

In a meeting Thursday, school board members unanimously approved Bulloch County Schools' "Strategic Plan 2020," which outlines a series of goals administrators will strive to accomplish during the next seven years.

"Having a plan like this provides us with a common focus on the critical issues, both those for which we are accountable and those that we value as a community," Superintendent Charles Wilson said. "It also provides alignment from what we expect of ourselves to what each of us does every day. We refer to this as alignment from the boardroom to the classroom."

The strategic plan is the product of two fairly recent developments that will shape education in the county over the next decade.

The first: a College and Career Ready Performance Index, or CCRPI, accountability model for public education, which has been adopted by the state of Georgia. The model measures content mastery, post-high school readiness, and high school graduation of students, and replaces adequate yearly progress as schools' accountability tool. AYP was the measure used under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, from which Georgia and 41 other states, plus the District of Columbia, have obtained waivers.

CCRPI is "designed to provide a level of achievement required for students to enroll in colleges (two- or four-year) without remediation, fully prepared for college level work or careers," according to the strategic plan.

A second basis for the new direction is a "community engagement process" conducted by the district in 2013.
Beginning in February, system administrators met with school councils, focus groups, students, parents, and teachers — more than 700 people from all areas of the community, in total — to hear their ideas about local public education.

The process, which wrapped up in May, was used to identify the strengths, issues, and challenges faced by the school system.

"As a community member, knowing that there is a plan like this gives me the confidence that the school district is looking at all of the factors affecting student success and, ultimately, our quality of life." Wilson said. "It also lets me know that the school district is working together with the community for solutions to our challenges, and that we are all holding ourselves and each other accountable for what matters."

The approximately 30-page strategic plan, which will be published on the Bulloch County Schools website after Oct. 14 (when the plan will be presented to a community advisory committee that led the engagement process), lists a mission, vision and goals the district has set for itself moving forward.

In addition to becoming a "leader in academic achievement," the plan states that Bulloch County Schools wants to "prepare students for college and careers in an education model economically valuable to our community," and "prepare them to be productive and successful citizens in a competitive global environment."

Among the specific goals included are: ensuring that 95 percent of all students are proficient and 65 percent are exceeding on state-mandated assessments by 2020; ensuring that 95 percent of graduates entering college do not require remediation or learning support courses; establishing partnerships with colleges and regional businesses to define academic and work-based learning programs and pathways, by 2015; and ensuring that the high school graduation rate is 95 percent at the end of the decade.

"Approving this plan is a starting point to an ongoing process," Wilson said. "The strategic plan will guide everything we will do; everything we do will strive toward achieving these goals."

Jeff Harrison may be reached at (912) 489-9454.