Superintendent Pacquiao reviewed the district's 2022'2025 strategic plan and outlined the approach to developing RPS 2030, telling the school board on Dec. 2 that the review focused on what worked, where the district fell short and how to prioritize capacity and timelines going forward.

Pacquiao and staff flagged a mix of results: a 3 percentage-point rise in third-grade math proficiency and a 0.1-point gain in third-grade reading; an 8.3 percentage-point increase in eighth-grade math proficiency and a 4.2-point rise in eighth-grade reading; an 11.4 percentage-point rise in students attending 90% or more of school days; and a 2.2 percentage-point increase in on-time graduation rates. "When we take a look at some other indicators, we saw an 11.4% increase in our students who are attending school consistently 90% or more of the time," Pacquiao said.

The superintendent noted investments and capacity-building that supported those gains: new reading curricula and large professional-development efforts (about 660 teachers engaged in the science-of-reading PD), expanded digital-pathway use (more than 1.9 million Xello sign-ins), deeper-learning pilots and partnerships that yielded grant and donation support. Pacquiao cited $20,888,771 in competitive grants secured during the plan and a transformative $10,000,000 donation from Mayo Clinic following a narrow referendum failure.

Board members and staff discussed sustaining and scaling the plan's building-block initiatives. On family engagement, staff described CAPE (Caregiver and Parent Empowerment) cohorts, routine parent surveys provided by the CAPE contractor, dedicated family-engagement liaisons at sites (modest stipends for staff serving beyond contract hours), and plans to use EduCLIMBER to link parent participation to student outcomes over time. On deeper learning, staff stressed that the initiative must be integrated into curriculum articulation and teacher development rather than left as a teacher-driven add-on; the unit repository created during pilots provides exemplars but requires ongoing support and structures at school sites. Board members urged that the next strategic plan include explicit capacity, timelines and budget linkages so goals do not outpace resources.

The presentation also addressed recruitment and retention, including the "Grow Your Own" scholarship pool (about $600,000 over five years) and local pipelines through CTE and concurrent-enrollment pathways to encourage students and support staff to pursue teaching credentials.

Pacquiao told the board the reflection is intended to be candid: "We did a lot. We should feel really good about the fact that we secured support from our community... and we changed start times and implemented a new reading curriculum," he said, while stressing the need for clearer implementation timelines and budget-linked capacity in the next plan. The board will review the remaining building blocks at the next regular meeting as the RPS 2030 plan is developed.