And very few school districts have a coherent strategy for managing and monitoring district and school-based initiatives, that is, determining whether a given program aligns with the vision and priorities of the school or district, and is grounded in the core principles of the learning and developmental sciences.   At our second retreat with the Senior Management Team, we facilitated an elaborate initiative mapping exercise to uncover, analyze, and rank each and every district initiative. Almost 100 district wide initiatives were identified through this process. We used the Center for Secondary School Redesign’s initiative mapping exercise for this activity.

Once the rankings revealed the initiatives that were deemed to be of highest priority, we then asked the team to evaluate the effectiveness of each through a high, medium, or low rating. This served as valuable context for us throughout the planning process.

With the lessons from these early meetings with the Senior Management Team under our belts, we began the core work of the strategic planning process.