David Douglas School Board reviews draft strategic plan, board members propose a new "staff" pillar

The David Douglas School District Board met Thursday, Oct. 23, beginning at 6:03 p.m. for a strategic planning workshop to review drafts of the district's strategic, equity and integrated plans and to solicit board input on next steps.

Ken, a cabinet member, said the district's "intention is to look at our current strategic plan, integrated plan, and equity plan and try to roll them into somewhat of a shell of a strategic plan, and then go after our community," framing the session as an opportunity for the board to test an initial consolidated draft rather than start from scratch.

The cabinet presented a high-level framework: four pillars with associated goals, strategies and indicators. Ida, a cabinet member leading the engagement work, described a strategic plan as "a road map" and emphasized that it is meant to be high level and accompanied later by implementation and action plans with measurable indicators. "So this is a very simple initial plan that we develop as a cabinet team," Ida said, noting the purpose of the evening was to gather targeted feedback in small-group discussions.

Board members split into two groups with assigned note takers and returned to the full meeting to report highlights. One recurring theme from both groups was that staff needs and supports were not explicitly visible in the four proposed pillars. "We came up with a fifth pillar," a board group reported after the breakout, saying the additional pillar would make staff well-being, training and safety explicit rather than leaving those supports dispersed across other goals.

Other points raised during discussion included the need to align goals and indicators with the district's mission and vision, to ensure student voice and belonging show up at all grade levels (including secondary), and to clarify access to preschool, multilingual literacy, arts and extracurricular programs. Board members and cabinet also discussed integrating professional learning and staff supports and ensuring equity-language and family-community engagement are explicit throughout the plan.

Cabinet described next steps: staff will revise the draft based on the board's feedback, iterate further, and begin broader stakeholder outreach. "We are planning to do focus groups with different groups, focus groups of students, all levels, work for families, staff, and community partners," Ida said, adding the district will also survey staff and coordinate with union leadership and labor management to solicit direct staff input. The board had allotted time for the breakout groups to return at 7:15 p.m. and to finish by 7:30 p.m.

During the meeting a board member noted the district had requested additional funding to expand preschool classes; the board did not adopt any formal motions or votes on the strategic plan during the workshop. Cabinet said it will continue to revise the draft and begin community outreach, surveys and targeted focus groups before returning future iterations to the board for additional review.

The meeting adjourned to a five-minute break before the scheduled executive session.