Visalia Unified unveils 5‑year strategic plan mapping and accountability framework
Summary
District leaders presented a five‑year mapping of 65 actions, progress indicators and a reporting cadence designed to make strategic work transparent to the board and community. Action owners will submit year‑one indicators by June 13.
The Visalia Unified School District presented a detailed five‑year strategic plan map on the board agenda, outlining 65 actions, research/design/implement/monitor phases, and a twice‑yearly reporting cadence to the board and public.
Superintendent Kirk Schrum framed the plan as the next step after the district’s previously adopted core beliefs and commitments. "Every system is perfectly designed to give you the results you're getting," Schrum said, describing the work to turn the district's long‑term goals into concrete annual and quarterly deliverables.
Assistant Superintendent Mark Thompson walked the trustees through the plan’s structure: teams identifying an “ideal state” five years out, backwards mapping to year‑by‑year indicators, and breaking year‑one indicators into quarterly tasks. Thompson said action owners completed training and will draft five‑year plans and one‑year indicators for cabinet review; the timeline in the presentation set June 13 as the date for teams to finish the one‑year indicators.
The plan includes metrics and a visual dashboard mockup the district will update twice a year. Schrum and Thompson described the approach as a way to hold teams accountable and to provide the board and community with clear progress markers and color‑coded status on research, design, implementation and monitoring phases.
Trustees asked questions about transparency and outcome tracking. Schrum said the district will publish updates online and provide twice‑yearly board reports tied to the board’s priority student outcomes, which rely on CAASPP and other state data. The presentation noted that some actions will require adjustments to staffing or budgets in future years and asked action owners to anticipate those needs during planning.
Thompson emphasized interdependency among actions and the need for cross‑team collaboration. "We focused on backwards design ... What do you need to accomplish in year 1 to reach the five‑year vision?" he said.
District staff said the mapping is intended to be iterative: teams may refine plans, but the published timeline and dashboard will make progress visible to the board and the public. Action owners and core teams must produce their one‑year indicators and tasks before the next school year so training and implementation can begin in a planned, phased way.
