SD 57 to Spend $100 Grand on Strategic Plan
Wednesday, November 6, 2013 @ 3:56 AM
The money is to be taken from the School District’s unappropriated surplus and will involve bringing in an outside facilitator.
Trustee Tim Bennett, who put forward the motion, notes the School District has not had a strategic plan for many years and that one is needed to “situate decisions for the long term.” According to him, the strategic plan will not only involve partner groups, but will also look at engaging communities throughout the School District, including Prince George, Hixon, McBride and Mackenzie.
Trustee Brenda Hooker voted against the $100,000 motion on the basis that , in her opinion, the School Board has already done a lot of the ground work for a plan, including establishing overall goals. Hooker argues that the issue is one of “putting some actions to these goals,” and that “it doesn’t take $100,000 to sit down one afternoon and develop some of these actions.” She expressed concern about the City of Prince George’s experience with bringing in KPMG to conduct its Core Review, where a lot of money was paid to an outside facilitator but with few results. In her opinion, a strategic plan could easily be done in-house with existing staff.
Trustee Bennett, however, believes that an outside facilitator is needed to bring in a fresh pair of eyes, and develop an objective plan based on feedback. He says School District staff are already “maxed out” because of cutbacks and assigning staff to work on a strategic plan will mean that other work will suffer. A strategic plan will save money in the long run because it will ensure the School District makes the best decisions.
Prince George & District Teacher Federation representative Tina Cousins says that the $100,000, which she says has come from the closure of 24 schools in the District and the stripping of the collective agreement, could be better spent by putting it back into the classroom, whether it be materials for students, teacher support, or improved class composition.
For her part, Trustee Hooker says, given the Board has passed the motion to allocate the funding, her job now is to support the strategic plan process, but to keep an eye on the costs, which, hopefully, can be kept to less than $100,000. Tim Bennett expects that, after consultation with communities, the plan will be completed by the end of the school year.
Comments
Thanks Brenda, nice to know that the members of the board has an opinion. Its also nice to see that once defeated, you will comply to support the boards decision.
What’s real funny is that the trustees, the management is going to say what they want, and this glorified secretary, listener is just going to compile what has been said. Then it goes thru the ringer again and it gets edited and than presented.
“Fresh pair of eyes” ….. hopefully that was supposed to mean an objective/neutral pair of eyes …..
The activity the SD57 would undergo with a Strategic Plan development is totally different from what a core review should have been about. KPMG was supposed to be more than just a facilitator, they were supposed to be evaluators if they were doing a true core review.
It was not called a strategic plan, it was called a core review.
Turns out they were more of a facilitator than bringing knowledge about how a city is run to the table in order to evaluate the city operation.
SD staff are already maxed out? And they the upper level administrators are not going to be involved with this? Strategic plans normally involve Boards and senior administrators.
$100,000 is a lot to pay for a scribe.
So, let me ask whether the $100,000 also covers travel costs, food, as well as the time logged in by paid staff. In other words, how much is staff going to be involved with this anyway, and how much additional time would be required if one or two would take on the responsibility of facilitating the discussion and writing up the matrix afterwards?
There is always a learning curve of the organization for facilitators which has to be paid for. That cost can be avoided. After all, these people are all involved with teaching, coaching, analyzing, etc.
Right on the money, he spoke!
I hear Harrison Hot Spring is a great place to go for strategic plans ….. people can unwind there and open their minds to new and better things that they may never have thought of afterwards.
Why do we elect a school board if their job is to be contracted out to someone who may not be familiar with this school district? It seems to me that more care should be taken with who we elect.
This is so an outsider can be blamed for the choice of which high school will be closed due to falling enrollment.
Hopefully the individual will look at the custodial department. 2 custodians now travel around in each of their own little white car- all expenses paid (gas) -doing other things which are not custodial or school district related.
The unappropriated surplus comes from previous budgets, and has strings attached. If it is not spent then it has to be returned to the Province.
Perhaps they have found a way to spend some of this money. I think the fund has something like $4 Million dollars in it.
A strategic plan. Is that something like the OCP that can be changed at a whim? Hope not.
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