Strategic plan ready for public comment

Marisa O’Neil

The school district doesn’t have to look into a crystal ball to see

where it will be five years from now.

The problem is getting there.

In the next two weeks, schools will start receiving copies of the

Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s proposed strategic plan, which

maps out the next five years for schools, teachers, administrators

and parents. Parents and community members will have about a month to

comment or offer suggestions before school board trustees vote in

October whether to accept it as it stands.

Community input during months of meetings helped form the

strategic plan, which is now in its near-final state. That interest

is vital if the plan is to succeed, district officials said.

“We have so many things the state comes at us with, so many

mandates,” Supt. Robert Barbot said. “It’s easy not to take a look at

what the community is wanting. Funding comes from the state, and

that’s great. But how do we fit that into what our community wants?”

Board trustees and district officials use the plan as a framework

for much of what they do, board president Dana Black said. They align

their operating budgets and decide where the money needs to go based

on the plan.

STICKING TO IT

The district came up with its first strategic plan in 1999,

looking ahead to 2004. It outlined some things that have since been

completed or implemented -- such as facilities improvement and

teacher training -- and others that have been rolled into the current

plan, including the use of technology in classrooms.

Some goals, such as making art, music and drama “an integral part

of school life,” as the plan stated, or eliminating prejudice on

campuses, proved more difficult to achieve. Those items are once

again on the plan.

Getting those goals down on paper and keeping officials

accountable for them is an important piece of the puzzle, board

member Tom Egan said.

“If it doesn’t persist, if people don’t keep pushing, [the plan]

might fall by the wayside,” he said. “But I’ve seen evidence that

support is pretty widespread.”

The current form of the 2005-2010 strategic plan came after months

of input from community members at a series of meetings as well as

refinement by trustees and district officials. Parents, teachers and

community members took part in discussions on a variety of topics and

were invited to bring up any issues they felt needed to be addressed.

“The strength of the process is that everybody was invited,”

former Harbor Council PTA president Patty Christiansen said. “Anybody

could put anything they wanted on the table. Everyone didn’t have to

be hired by the district, they didn’t have to be active in the PTA.

They could put on the agenda what they felt needed work.”

One of the biggest things people thought needed work was the

secondary education system in the district. A redesign of the high

schools tops the list of priorities in the plan.

Classes for all students

The district needs to look at ways it can cater to different types

of students, Assistant Supt. for Secondary Education Jaime

Castellanos said. Though the high school curriculum is geared to

students applying to universities, not everybody fits that model, he

said.

“If that’s the case, what’s happening to the rest of the kids?” he

said. “It’s forcing everybody into the same curriculum, when not

everybody goes to college, not everybody learns the same way.”

Options include expanding on the two online courses introduced

this summer or extending the school day and allowing students to

schedule classes at the hours they prefer.

Another way to improve student achievement is by encouraging

parental support, Costa Mesa Junior High School Principal John Garcia

said. That school is working on the family-friendly concept the

district hopes to adopt at all schools.

Already, they have created a parent center on campus, reached out

to area businesses for internship opportunities and held a pancake

breakfast the first day of school this year.

“Fundamentally, we know that the more parents are involved in the

school, the higher students are going to achieve,” Garcia said.

That approach helps students and parents make the transition from

elementary school to junior high and high school, parent Mirna

Burciaga said. She took part in the strategic plan meetings and

brought up her concerns about what she saw as a lack of parent

involvement in junior high.

Burciaga -- who is a candidate for Costa Mesa City Council --

worked as a volunteer in her children’s elementary school classes

but, she said, felt like parents had few opportunities to help out

once their students got past the sixth grade.

“I’m glad they’re doing that,” Burciaga said of the

family-friendly schools approach. “Part of the discussion [at the

meetings] was that parent involvement is important. Parents need to

feel welcome, and students need to feel important and part of the

school. We need to treat them with respect and help them understand

why they have to follow the rules.”

Filling out the curriculum

Other priorities include more technology into the classrooms and

curriculums, offering arts education to students, focusing on fitness

and nutrition and helping English learners perform to the standards

of native speakers. The plan also includes an expansion of the

community service requirement of 40 hours to include service learning

or incorporating that service into the instructional curriculum.

The district broke the plan into five sections: “Excellence,” for

academic issues; “Innovation,” for the district’s customer service;

“21st Century Skills,” for technological issues; “Communication and

Collaboration,” to work with businesses; and people in the community

and “Facilities and Infrastructure.”

Now that the district’s bond-funded, multi-school Measure A

school-improvement project is underway, Black said they will be able

to focus on other areas of need. The plan, she said, is a good basis

for that and will help keep them on track.

“I think we’ve got a good foundation,” she said. “We’ve pretty

much got our list. It’s pretty monumental.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.