School City of East Chicago board adopts 2025–2030 strategic plan after multi-month community process
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Summary
The School City of East Chicago board voted to approve a five-year strategic plan that sets mission, vision and six core values and establishes districtwide goals for academics, behavior supports, career pathways, family engagement and staff development.
The School City of East Chicago Board of Trustees approved a draft 2025–2030 strategic plan after presentations from the district superintendent and the plan facilitator, setting the district’s mission, vision and core values and directing staff to begin implementation work.
The plan, presented to the board in June by consultant Gregory Hutchins of Revolutionary Ed and Superintendent Dr. [Bornay] (transcript uses “doctor Bornay”), frames the district’s mission as an aim to “educate and empower every student through aligned instruction, meaningful partnerships, and differentiated practices to ensure success in life, college, career, and civic engagement.” The board voted to approve the plan in a roll-call vote; all five trustees recorded “yes.”
The board adopted a mission, vision and five core values — Access and Belonging; High-Quality Learning; Comprehensive Supports; Integrity and Accountability; and Belief — and six strategic focus areas: academic support systems; behavioral, emotional and social supports; career pathways; family and community engagement; funding/resources; and staff relations and professional learning. The plan also commits the district to develop implementation road maps and measurable metrics in the coming year.
Dr. Gregory Hutchins, lead facilitator for the strategic-planning committee, told the board the plan resulted from a four-month, multi-stakeholder process including focus groups with students, staff, bilingual families, and community partners. “These past four months, they have been pretty intense,” Hutchins said during the presentation, noting two virtual sessions and additional committee meetings that informed goal-setting.
Superintendent Dr. Bornay reviewed the drafted mission and vision the committee proposed and emphasized the board’s earlier involvement in refining the statements. “The School City of East Chicago educates and empowers every student through aligned instruction, meaningful partnerships, and differentiated practices to ensure success in life, college, career, and civic engagement,” he said when presenting the recommended mission.
Committee members presented goal-level theories of change tied to each focus area. Examples included a districtwide academic supports system with a focus on high-fidelity Tier 1 instruction, and structured behavioral and social-emotional supports to increase school connectedness. The career-pathways goal calls for expanding middle- and high-school opportunities and partnerships with local industry and postsecondary institutions; committee members named local Northwest Indiana employers such as Cleveland-Cliffs and BP as prospective partners.
Board members who served on the strategic planning committee praised the process and the plan’s community input. Trustee [Rodriguez] and Trustee [Taylor], both committee appointees, told the board they were satisfied their perspectives and those of other stakeholders were incorporated.
The superintendent said approval would allow the district to move into development of detailed action plans, including metrics and an “implementation roadmap” that will define baselines and reporting for future board monitoring.
Votes at a glance - Approval of 2025–2030 Strategic Plan (agenda item 6.02/6.03): Motion by Trustee Diane Smith; second Trustee Christie Gomez. Roll call: Gomez—Yes; Smith—Yes; Rodriguez—Yes; Taylor—Yes; President Gibson King—Yes. Outcome: approved. - Approval of memorandum of understanding with Starbase (agenda item 6.03 on packet): Motion by Trustee Joel Rodriguez; second Trustee Taylor. Outcome: approved (roll call recorded all present voting yes). - Other related approvals taken later in the meeting (personnel report amendments and multiple contract renewals) are recorded separately in board minutes and discussed in full in this meeting’s record.
What happens next The board asked administration to develop the implementation phase, including specific metrics, action plans, and a policy audit tied to the plan’s goals. Hutchins and the superintendent said the next steps include drafting the implementation roadmap and identifying baseline measures for the board’s first year of monitoring.
The board meeting packet and supplemental documents the district provided list the finalized mission, vision, core values and the draft goals that the board approved.
