With the holiday season upon us, I am reminded that the school year is rapidly approaching the midway point. I hope you have experienced success with your work on behalf of students during the first months of the year. With all of the demands facing students and educators today, it's important to take time to celebrate those successes.
During these first few months of the year, our ESD 113 staff members have focused considerable time and energy on an agency-wide strategic planning process. Client input about current and future services is an important part of that planning.
The first phase in that data gathering was completed in mid-November through several focus group discussions. Separate groups were convened for superintendents, central office staff, fiscal officers, principals and teachers. Representatives for those groups were selected to create a balance from within our region and among the various size districts we serve.
In addition to providing good information for our planning process, the input from those groups will be used to help create a survey that will be sent to a broader cross section of district staff. Our intent is to use different surveys for different program areas, and invite responses from the district staff members who most frequently utilize each program. As with any survey process, the results will only be as good as our participation rate, so your support in following up on such survey requests is very critical.
This client feedback will be combined with other data we are gathering to help us analyze our internal and external environment and then set a course for meeting the new challenges facing ESD 113 and the school districts we serve,"
As with most strategic planning processes, another important activity has been an in-depth review of the beliefs that guide our work. While most of that work is still in a draft form, I want to share our new mission statement: "The purpose of ESD 113 is to assure excellent and equitable education for all students through service and collaboration."
While this is similar to our previous mission statement, it differs in some important ways. First difference is the word "assure." That reflects a higher level of commitment than found in our earlier statement. An equally important change is the focus on "equitable education for all students." While that concept was imbedded in our earlier mission statement, it now takes on a much more central focus. And, while the "service and collaboration" portion of the statement isn't new, that phrase emphasizes the critical ingredients in how we work at achieving the mission.
So you may be asking what difference this statement makes in ESD operations. The first impact is that this mission will guide the goals developed through the strategic planning process. But on an ongoing basis, the mission will serve as the lens through which we evaluate current programs and new initiatives. Our hope is that you will see these words acted upon through our work with you, our clients.