May 2012
Dear Parents, Staff, and Community Members:
As President Eisenhower once said, "Plans are nothing; planning is everything." In Rochester Public Schools, we understand that the world is changing rapidly and it will pose challenges to our children that we can barely imagine today. Only through proper planning can we give our children a sound, well-rounded education that prepares them for their future. As Superintendent of Rochester Public Schools, I find this responsibility both inspiring and challenging. But I'm encouraged that when planning the right education for our children, we can draw on the collective wisdom of our community.
How do we establish a focus and direction for the work of the district? This important question is addressed in a document that Rochester Public Schools prepares and updates periodically. This document, called the District's Strategic Plan, must reflect the concerns and priorities of our community. Strategic Planning is the process of looking at all aspects of our district and planning how we wish to move the district forward. It provides the "big picture" of where we are, where we are going, and how we are going to get there.
As the first step towards our strategic plan, we reached out to our Rochester residents, our teachers and other staff to ask for input during our World Cafe sessions. More than 500 of our stakeholders participated in a World Cafe session. From those participants, we learned some important findings that will guide our strategic plan. Second, we convened a Core Planning Team. The Core Planning Team consisted of 29 individuals chosen to reflect the diversity of the community. The task of the Core Planning Team during the initial planning meeting was to create a draft strategic plan that began with discerning the core values that are central to who we are as a community and then declaring what it is we want to create for our school district - our mission. The team then wrote strategic objectives that will allow us to know we are making progress and strategies that will identify what it is we will need to do to make progress towards our mission. The final component of our draft strategic plan, strategic delimiters, defined what our school district agrees not to do on our way to achieving our mission.
I would like to thank everyone who took part in the World Cafe sessions and the recent Core Planning Team meetings. We truly have an organization of very dedicated and hard-working staff.
Michael Muñoz
Superintendent
(To see the list of the Core Planning Team members or to see the documents from the World Cafe sessions, visit the Strategic Planning web page.)
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Rochester Public Schools is now on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow the Superintendent's tweets through Facebook or Twitter.
School Board Update - Check out the latest newsletter from the May 15 Board meeting.
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◊ May 23: Staff Appreciation Picnic, 4:00 - 7:30 p.m., Edison Building Parking Lot.
◊ May 28: Memorial Day. All district buildings are closed.
◊ June 5: School Board Meeting, 6:30 p.m. Edison Building.
◊ June 7: Last day of school.
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Spotlight is a new feature highlighting the great staff at Rochester Public Schools. This month's video features Kathy Knott, teacher at Bamber Valley Elementary School, who recently won KAAL TV's Excellent Educator Award.
You can see more about Ms. Knott in this video.
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Welcome to Discover. Discover... the best of Rochester Public Schools is your one-stop place for the most recent videos, articles, and news about what is great at Rochester Public Schools.
Quarry Hill Nature Center, 4/19/12 - Video
Elk's Essay Contest Winners, 2/23/12 - Video
100 Book Challenge, 1/19/12 - Video
Commissioner's Visit to Rochester, 12/13/11 - Video
Operation Hometown Gratitude, 12/08/11 - Video
Veterans' Day, 11/15/11 - Video
See other Archived videos from 2011-2012.
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