Santa Rosa schools outline Year 3 strategic-plan results and priorities for Year 4

Santa Rosa County School District leaders presented a Year 3 strategic-plan update and a set of priorities for Year 4 in a workshop-format meeting, citing expanded student engagement programs, new data-reporting routines for administrators and a planned district communications platform.

Mike Thorpe, a member of the strategic plan cabinet, opened the presentation and recited the district mission, saying, “Prepare all students for graduation and a successful future.” That mission, presenters said, guided the year’s work across four strategic themes: student engagement and support; data use for program evaluation; shared instructional leadership; and stakeholder communication and engagement.

The Year 3 report highlighted several district initiatives and results. Sharlyn Knight, co-chair of Student Engagement and Support, said the district expanded middle-school Spanish offerings and continued a districtwide career-exploration program, Xello. “This was our second year to have all of our eighth graders complete a Xello career plan before going to high school,” Knight said, and she reported a target to increase Xello usage at the elementary level to 50 percent in Year 4. Knight also described increased middle-school extracurricular participation, the district’s work with a vendor to deliver short career videos (TIGBEE Tuesdays), and recognition for Navarre High School’s Anchored for Life program.

On facilities and programming, presenters said the Santa Rosa Center for Innovation is under renovation on Highway 90 and district staff hope to have access by November 2025; while the building is completed staff have been taking robotics, coding, drones and virtual-reality demonstrations into schools.

Travis Fulton, who leads the Data Use for Program Evaluation theme, described steps to put reports into administrators’ hands and to use them with student improvement plans. “We actually had the administrators this year submit these reports with their student improvement plans for the 2425,” Fulton said, and he said midyear reporting allowed schools to make course corrections before end-of-year assessments. Fulton said some vendor and ITS challenges slowed production of certain final-year reports but that administrators are using the available reports to target instruction.

Presenters described shared instructional-leadership pilots that focused on student-led academic teaming, problem-based learning and protocols called rigor walks and look-and-learns. BJ Price, co-lead for Shared Instructional Leadership, said those pilots were volunteer programs at seven schools this year and will expand to additional schools in Year 4.

Nadia Cohen, communications lead, reviewed the district’s new web presence and parent-facing communications platform. “We launched our new website on 05/01/2025,” Cohen said, and the district has partnered with a vendor (Apogee) to roll out an integrated alerts-and-classroom app. Cohen said the app launched June 1 and had about 2,000 downloads in its first three days; she described features for mass alerts (calls/texts/email), classroom messaging and links to district services such as the parent portal, Cafeteria menus (Chartwells) and transportation.

Presenters also previewed Year 4 priorities: expanding in-house CTE and academic course offerings on Santa Rosa Online (seeking DoDEA grant funding to accelerate the timeline), creating broadcast-classroom experiences for ESOL students at Gulf Breeze and Navarre High School, continuing expansion of student-led academic teaming and problem-based learning, and providing district staff and families training and support for the new communications platform.

Dr. Barber, the district superintendent, closed the session by restating that the strategic plan drives resource decisions. “If it doesn't align to our strategic plan, if it doesn't align to the mission of our school district, then it's not something that we consider,” she said, and she told the board the plan is informing investments aimed at increasing student achievement.

The presentation concluded with the cabinet inviting questions; no formal board votes or binding actions were reported during the workshop segment noted in the transcript.