Excellence, Equity, and Accountability 2014: A Strategic Plan for The School District of Philadelphia

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Dear Friends:

Over the upcoming months, The School District of Philadelphia will be undertaking a tremendous challenge: to create a strategic plan to achieve excellence, equity and accountability for everyone within the District with the ultimate goal of providing every District student with a high-quality, 21st century-ready, education.

During the previous five years, the District had been offering an excellent education to some but not all Philadelphia students. Although incremental progress had been made in terms of student achievement, a large percentage of students still do not complete high school within six years and persistent participation and achievement “gaps” remain between students of different ethnicities, home languages, areas of residence, and program placement. At the same time, adults within the District were not always held accountable for protecting the core mission of the District – providing every student with an excellent and high-quality education.

This effort of creating an agenda for excellence, equity, and accountability by 2014 cannot be done without the support of the entire District as well as the Philadelphia community. The first stage of this endeavor will be a series of community meetings conducted in multiple languages throughout Philadelphia. The goal of these community meetings is to not only to share what the District has learned from its previous work but also to gather the experiences and recommendations from parents, students, and community leaders concerned about the future of our students.

The second stage of creating this plan will be to host a series of working groups with specific focus areas. These working groups will be charged with the task of determining a set of strategies and priorities to support the District in achieving its goals of excellence, equity, and accountability. Each of these working groups will include District leaders at all levels (central office, regional offices, principals, teachers, and support staff), parents, students, and community partners. As a District, we serve a diverse student population; it is equally critical that our working groups represent this diversity.

The third stage of creating this plan will be to return the suggested strategies to the community to ensure that we have created an agenda to achieve excellence, equity, and accountability that will ensure that every student receives a high-quality, 21st century-ready, education.

We have scheduled numerous community meetings beginning as early as November 3rd. Working groups will begin their critical work as early as mid-November. We anticipate having a completed plan to deliver to the community in late January or early February. However, the completion of the plan is only the beginning of this tremendous work. At least four times during the year for the next six years, we will provide updates on how the implementation of the plan is progressing and what challenges still remain.

We need your help in this process. If you would like to learn more about this work, participate in a working group, or schedule a community meeting, visit http://www.philasd.org/strategicplan or email strategicplan@philasd.org. We cannot do this incredible work alone; we need the help of the entire District and Philadelphia community to create a plan to achieve excellence, equity and accountability in The School District of Philadelphia.

Respectfully,
Arlene C. Ackerman, Ed.D.
Superintendent
The School District of Philadelphia