Long-Range School Goals to be Presented

Three school board members are expected to present the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board tonight with a long-range goal-setting plan for the district.

“Before we were so rudely interrupted by the bankruptcy, we were starting to do some strategic planning,” said Dale Woolley, director of planning and program development for the district.

The point of strategic planning is to help the current and future school boards make difficult decisions about the district’s direction, especially since Orange County’s Dec. 6 bankruptcy filing, Woolley said.

Board committees, for example, are reviewing eight vacant or leased district properties for possible sale, reviewing population projections and possible solutions for lower-grade crowding districtwide, and negotiating with the city of Costa Mesa to convert its fallow high school farm property to a sports complex.

A strategic plan would include a philosophy, mission statement, goals and plans for accomplishing the mission, assignment of responsibility for tasks and annual appraisals and staff updates.

Woolley and his staff studied sample mission statements from other districts that have done similar planning. Those statements included such overall goals as enabling all students to compete successfully in a complex technological society and developing competent, contributing citizens.