Strategic Design
Our call to action:
"All BCISD Learners are equipped to pursue their limitless futures in an ever changing, global society."
In June of 2019, Bay City ISD partnered with engage2learn (e2L) to facilitate the development of a strategic plan that would consider existing educational initiatives, align to the Board of Education’s initiatives, and capture the community’s highest hopes for learning. Using e2L’s 5 step Strategic Design, Bay City ISD and e2L developed a comprehensive plan using the following processes.
The Strategic Plan is designed to guide the District in planning, purchasing, and implementation for the next 3-5 years. The Strategic Plan is meant to serve as a living document that will be evaluated and updated regularly to meet the District’s changing needs.
The purpose of the Strategic Plan is to define goals and develop specific results based on critical opportunities. The success of Bay City ISD will depend on those served by it, as well as internal and external stakeholders. The development of a strategic plan will:
- outline a district-wide roadmap for the future;
- provide a clear direction for the district; and
- encompass strategic thinking and informed planning.
Engagement
A locally-developed vision for all students, one that truly represents the hopes and desires of the Bay City ISD community, is essential to purposeful, strategic planning. An organization becomes solid when stakeholder groups are working in harmony for learners. Bay City ISD supports and collaborates with parents, community members, and business partners to reach the highest hopes for students. The partnerships available in the local communities can provide new opportunities to propel the vision for students, provide career-based learning opportunities, and make progress toward equitable access to employment opportunities.
Community input opportunities existed in the form of Community Summits, open to anyone in the entire community to discuss the highest hopes for learners. Focus Groups consisting of small, homogeneous gatherings of invited stakeholders responded to intentionally designed questions related to learning experiences. Lastly, an Educational Survey was sent out and allowed anyone who was not able to participate in the summit or focus groups the option to provide input. The engagement data and SWOT analysis and district data were used by the Design Team to ensure the Bay City ISD Strategic Plan reflects the hopes and desires of the local community.
Design Work
Every school community needs a locally designed, shared, long-term vision for the direction of the school district. Working together with the local community, Bay City ISD established actionable, operational plans that leverage the district’s unique, local challenges and opportunities with responsiveness to the current global context, to ensure that Bay City ISD learners thrive.
Engage2learn continued the work by facilitating a 5-Step Strategic Design process. The e2L process is based on the principles of Design Thinking and Backward Design to engage the community in creating a collaborative local vision. The e2L methodology is research-based, focused on learners, collaborative, engaging and actionable. To ensure District ownership of the Strategic Design process, a 35-40-member Design Team was named by the District. This team consisted of a cross section of all stakeholders including community and business leaders, staff, teachers, administrators, elected officials and most importantly students. The role of the team was to honor community input and design components of the plan. The process followed the e2L Design Model. Principles of the model included inviting students into the process and keeping them the focus of the work, while ensuring that the community had a voice, too. The process included creating action plans to make certain that the plan does not just sit on a shelf; instead, it is truly actionable.
As a result of the Strategic Design process, Bay City ISD has the beginnings of a high performance culture, which includes beliefs, call to action, learner profile, learner outcomes, goals, specific results, action plans, and a sequenced timeline for implementation.