February 14, 2006 > New Haven board briefs

by Rick La Plante

The Board of Education on Tuesday, Feb. 7 approved the District's Strategic Plan, crafted during the previous six months by more than 160 students, parents, teachers, classified employees, principals, administrators and community members. The plan includes 54 "specific results" - covering curriculum, communications and decision-making, the engaging of all stakeholders, character education and improving the learning environment that will help drive prioritizing and budgeting for the next five years.

The plan is based on a set of mutually agreed-upon beliefs used by a 29-member Planning Team last August to construct a mission statement and a set of objectives. The Planning Team agreed on five strategies to reach those objectives and also agreed on a set of parameters under which the strategies could be implemented.

Five Action Teams - one for each strategy and including about 140 individuals overall - met on 10 Monday nights starting in September to devise action plans to implement the strategies. The action plans were presented to the original Planning Team in December, reviewed and revised, then finalized in January for presentation to the Board.

Copies of the Strategic Plan are available at the District office and on the District website and will be distributed throughout the District in a special edition of the New Haven News.

Also on Tuesday night, the Board received an update on the Governor's budget for 2006-07, approved graduation and competency standards for students with disabilities, and accepted a donation of laptop computers from GE Security Homeland Protection in Newark.

Agendas of all Board of Education meetings and minutes of past meetings are available on the District website: www.nhusd.k12.ca.us.