Jordan School Board gets final update on Portrait of a Graduate; rollout planned for August
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Summary
Education Elements presented the board with a year-end report on implementation of Jordan School District's strategic plan and Portrait of a Graduate, describing a five-year rollout plan, three objectives that reached initial implementation this year, and a detailed August session plan for principals and teachers.
Education Elements presented the Jordan School District Board of Education with a final update on the district’s Portrait of a Graduate and strategic-plan implementation at the June 10 meeting, previewing summer work and an August rollout for principals and teachers.
The presentation outlined a five-year roadmap for full implementation of the district’s strategic objectives and highlighted three objectives that moved into some form of implementation this year. Sarah, a lead consultant from Education Elements, said the district’s approach this year emphasized alignment and infrastructure: “If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the four sharpening the ax,” she told the board, using the quote to explain the year’s focus on readiness before deeper rollout.
Why it matters: Board members said they wanted clarity about how the plan will be implemented in classrooms and how the district will monitor progress. Education Elements and district staff said the next steps include training sessions for principals in June and two-hour facilitated sessions for teachers in August, with materials (slide decks, facilitator scripts and school-level planning tools) provided so principals present a consistent message across campuses.
What the consultants presented: Education Elements described a five-year staging — installation, acclimation, refinement and sustainability — and said priority-setting this first year produced a set of “trigger points” that indicate readiness to move from initial to full implementation. One example: the district’s High Impact Teaching (HIT) strategies have been finalized and collected into a teacher-facing playbook; the objective will be considered in full implementation when the HIT strategies are incorporated into the teacher evaluation process as a growth measure.
Board discussion and follow-up: Board members used a standard 1-to-5 check-in to report their current clarity about strategic priorities; most placed themselves at a 3 to 4.5, with several members saying regular implementation updates would raise their confidence. Superintendent Anthony Godfrey said he was already comfortable with the district’s progress and “excited to see it move forward.”
Education Elements and district leaders said the team will continue to provide regular updates and maintain a project-management workbook that breaks the five‑year timeline into objective-level action steps and trigger points. The consultants said they plan to step back after this summer, but the district will retain the option to request periodic check-ins from Education Elements.
What comes next: Principals will participate in administrator training this month to internalize and rehearse the August teacher session. Teachers’ August sessions will focus on two prioritized Portrait of a Graduate characteristics — “curious thinkers” and “responsible teammates” — and on how to integrate the proficiency scales into existing lessons, assessment rubrics and student self-reflection.
Board members asked for ongoing visibility into metrics and progress-monitoring (special-education and other subgroup measures were specifically discussed), and staff agreed to continue sharing the implementation spreadsheet and to schedule recurring updates so the board can track trigger points and decisions about moving objectives into full implementation.
