Assistant Superintendent Terry Roeder and other department leaders briefed the State Board of Education during the Dec. 10 work session on the state’s contract with Public Consulting Group (PCG) and the status of the Alabama Achieves strategic plan.

"PCG is a public consulting group, and they're a partner," Roeder said, describing the vendor’s role in project management, technical assistance and strategy work across the department. Board materials and speakers said PCG began work in 2019 and helped convert strategic-plan priorities into a task-tracker with named owners, approvers, due dates and status indicators.

Department leaders and board members described a shift to a “living” strategic plan with sprint-style monitoring. Roeder said the project-tracker lists tasks, managers and approvers; the department reported those due in December are on track: "we had 13 tasks, from our strategic plan, how they're gonna achieve, that was paced out with our project that we had to be done with. And those 13 out of 13 are on track for December."

Superintendent Eric Mackey and other staff described weekly and small-group meetings with PCG and department leads, and said they had reduced frequency of full-team meetings to sustain staff capacity amid COVID. Mackey and staff said PCG offers outside project-management discipline and that department staff reject some consultant recommendations when they do not fit Alabama’s context.

Board members asked how the plan will accommodate pandemic-related delays or shifting priorities. Department staff said the strategic plan is intentionally flexible: departments will adjust sequencing and timelines to reflect COVID impacts while preserving agreed priorities. Mackey cited mental-health supports, literacy work and teacher-shortage initiatives as examples of items reprioritized or accelerated during the pandemic.

The board did not vote on PCG items at the work session but was briefed on the department’s current implementation approach and next deadlines.