Bloomfield Hills board launches eight‑month strategic planning process, tables measurable for “sense of belonging” goal

Superintendent Rick West told the Bloomfield Hills Schools Board of Education that the district is beginning a multi‑phase strategic planning process with Thru Consulting and expects the work to take about seven to eight months, with stakeholder meetings starting immediately and a draft plan aimed for adoption before the next school year.

Thru Consulting consultants David (last name not provided), and Daniella (last name not provided), presented the firm’s seven‑step approach, which the board and staff described as: stakeholder engagement, current‑state data analysis, implications and priority setting, identification of three to four plan pillars, initiative drafting, a multi‑year roadmap, and an activation/monitoring plan. “The idea is that it will be done before, really hopefully, by around the summer,” Daniella said, describing the target timeline.

Why it matters: the strategic plan will translate the district’s recently developed mission, vision and “why” into implementable initiatives — including measurable targets the board can track and use to guide resource decisions.

What the consultants will use and how they will engage the community: Thru Consulting said it will build on prior engagement by Galapagos (the district’s earlier vendor). The consultants reported more than 2,200 survey responses and more than 100 focus‑group participants from Galapagos’ prior work and said they would re‑use that data where appropriate rather than duplicate efforts. The consultants and district staff described a roughly 30‑person advisory/working group as a primary steering cohort; that group will be supplemented by broader surveys, focus groups and targeted outreach. “We were kind of put into a 30‑person limit, so we wanted to make sure we had representation from each of the levels,” Superintendent Rick West said of the advisory group process.

Board members pressed on outreach to non‑school community members and on tactics to reach groups that historically do not attend school‑district meetings. Thru Consulting said best practice is to “go to the places where people already gather” (examples cited: faith‑based organizations, homeowners’ associations and community groups) rather than simply announce meetings at schools. The consultants and staff also said a project landing page and a short superintendent video will be published to publicize the process and that two or three in‑person advisory kickoff sessions are planned, with a tentative advisory meeting on Dec. 15 to collect initial findings.

Sense of belonging: board pauses next step on superintendent evaluation metric. Board members spent substantial time discussing a proposed “goal 6” tied to sense of belonging (students and staff). Trustee Michelle (last name not provided) urged that the board not “hide” the topic inside other work and called for an explicit measure. At the same time, administration requested more time to formulate measurable indicators that would be appropriate for both students and staff. “I’m not comfortable with not addressing belonging,” Michelle said; administrators replied they are forming a task force and evaluating existing instruments (culture/climate surveys, EOS questions and state examples such as Oregon Department of Education guidance) to derive valid, longitudinal measures.

Administrators explained the operational difficulty: different strategies and measurement instruments are likely needed for students versus staff. Todd (staff member, role not specified) and other staff said the district paused some climate surveying last spring because they planned to combine those questions with strategic‑planning engagement; they now plan to synthesize multiple data sources (district climate surveys, EOS questioning and assessment dashboards such as i‑Ready) so the district can track change over time. The administration asked the strategic planning and governance committees to continue work and return recommendations on measurable options in the fall (staff proposed updates in October/November and noted contractually specified superintendent goals must be set by February).

Board oversight and next steps: the consultants said they will return to the full board with a workshop after the advisory group has generated initial findings and a draft roadmap. Superintendent West said the district will launch the project landing page and video within days and will circulate the advisory‑group list to the board once invitations are confirmed. Board members were asked to forward names for the working group to the superintendent.

Ending: Thru Consulting and staff said they will prioritize a robust engagement plan to reach community members not normally connected to the district’s meetings and will return to the board with draft metrics and the advisory‑group findings in the coming months.