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Hendry County Schools unveil draft strategic plan, set academic targets and seek community feedback
Summary
District leaders presented a draft 2025–2028 strategic plan at a LaBelle town hall, adding safety as a new goal, setting proficiency targets for ELA and math and launching a district advisory council to collect parent and community input.
Hendry County Schools leaders presented a draft strategic plan and academic targets at a town-hall meeting in LaBelle, asking parents and community members to review the proposal and provide feedback through town halls and a new district advisory council.
The draft plan, described by Deputy Superintendent Dr. Staley, adds safety and security as a sixth district goal and sets measurable targets for student proficiency: increase ELA proficiency from 44% in 2023–24 to 54% by 2027–28 and raise math proficiency from 47% to 57% over the same period. The plan also includes targets for survey-based measures of school climate and for a 10% annual reduction in incidents reported to the state school-environment safety incident reporting system (CESSOR).
“People need to feel safe to be able to learn,” Dr. Staley said while outlining the safety and security objectives. She described the draft as a “living, breathing” document that district leadership will revise after community input.
Why it matters: The strategic plan will guide budget and operational priorities for the district, which has roughly 7,500 students, about 1,000 employees and a $236,000,000 operating budget, officials said. The document’s targets will factor into school improvement strategies, professional learning and resource allocation.
District leaders said the plan will be refined after town-hall feedback and formal school-board input. Superintendent Mike Swindle framed the plan as a community-facing tool: “It’s our job to educate. It’s our job to teach, and we’re gonna bring every student along,” he said, adding the district is taking “zero excuses.”
Officials described how the plan links to specific, recurring district actions: monthly half-day professional learning for teachers, school walkthroughs to monitor standards-based instruction, and expanded principal instructional leadership development. Elementary and secondary directors — Tressa Duncan and Mr. Sanchez — credited the district’s regular professional learning cadence and walkthroughs with part of the academic gains the district has reported in recent years.
The district also announced plans to create a single district advisory council to consolidate parent and stakeholder input on required plans (for example, ELL, student progression, migrant and homeless-student strategies, school improvement and parent- and family-engagement plans). Dr. Mundy said the advisory council will meet quarterly; attendees may join via a sign-up form or QR code the district distributed at the meeting.
Discussion and next steps: Officials said the draft plan is marked “DRAFT” on each page and will change based on feedback. Stakeholders were invited to scan QR codes at the meeting or complete an online town-hall feedback survey in English and Spanish. District leadership said they will return to the school board after compiling community input and that performance targets will be adjusted if interim data warrants.
Ending: District leaders urged attendees to participate in the feedback process and invited follow-up questions, saying staff maintain an “open-door” approach for community members seeking more information.
