Wooster City Schools board reviews draft five-year strategic plan and mission/tagline options

Wooster City Schools’ leadership presented a draft five-year strategic plan at the board’s June meeting, laying out six goals focused on academics, culture and safety, staff support, communication, family partnerships and facilities and soliciting board edits before bringing a final document back for consideration next month.

Superintendent Gabe Tudor told the board the draft draws on staff and community surveys, 13 focus groups and administrative reviews and that “there is no board action on the strategic plan this evening.” He said the district will post the draft along with the feedback and data that informed it and expects to bring a revised plan to the July agenda for possible approval.

The plan’s first goal centers on academics: Tudor said the district intends to “elevate instructional excellence” through a data-driven instructional framework and targeted intervention systems such as MTSS to ensure students are challenged and supported. Subsequent goals address social-emotional supports and safety (Goal 2), staff collaboration and retention (Goal 3), clearer and more inclusive communications (Goal 4), deeper family and community partnerships (Goal 5) and long-term facilities planning with attention to ventilation, secure entry and fiscal stewardship (Goal 6).

Board members provided specific, editorial feedback during the discussion. One board member asked that the communications objective explicitly “pay special attention to the non-parents” in the community; another urged adding a clear anti-bullying action under the culture and safety goal after noting the prevalence of bullying in survey responses. Tudor and consultant Doreen Osmond said those additions were reasonable and that they would incorporate the suggestions into the next draft.

Osmond led a facilitated exercise to narrow vision, mission and tagline options. She presented three candidate packages and asked trustees to mark words or phrases they found strong, unclear or misaligned. The board coalesced around elements of Option 1 (the working tagline “learning today, leading tomorrow”), while debating precise phrasing for a concise vision line and where to signal the board’s expectations about preparing students for work, college or service. Osmond said she will produce a consolidated option for board review in July.

The board’s conversation also linked the strategic plan to near-term fiscal choices: Tudor noted facility decisions and a possible operating levy connect directly to strategic priorities. He reiterated the plan is a “compass” for district decisions and emphasized that, once adopted, objectives will be assigned to administrators with annual reports to track progress.

The board did not vote on the plan; Tudor said the draft will be refined based on feedback and posted publicly before the next meeting, when trustees may consider approval.