One of the most rewarding parts of leading the Ukiah Unified School District is the outstanding support we receive from parents and community members. Last Tuesday, October 25th, the Guiding Coalition for our district’s strategic plan met to continue its work on shaping our focus for the next several years. The Guiding Coalition is made up mostly of district personnel, with an emphasis on teachers. They serve as a workgroup that reviews the multitude of initiatives and the volume of student data that serve as the foundation for our Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP). The work of the Guiding Coalition is shared with the District Advisory Committee (DAC), which is a diverse group of parents, community leaders, community members, educators, and students. The members of DAC met until 7:30 p.m. on the 25th, giving generously of their time and expertise. It is this type of broad community collaboration that makes Ukiah and its school district unique.

We routinely update or renew our strategic plan every three years in our continuous improvement cycle. As you might imagine, the Pandemic had a significant influence on students that our prior plan did not anticipate. In some cases, large trends remained intact and will continue to be in our lens of focus. Other trends developed and now require a fresh approach. As a practice, we create our plan with input and feedback from all involved in public school, students, staff, parents, and the community at large. Our work in the Guiding Coalition and District Advisory Committee includes surveys and interviews with staff, parents, and students. Once the results are worked back and forth between the two groups, the refined thinking is shared with our Leadership team, which includes all principals and department heads. Ultimately, we’re building toward a rough draft of a plan to share with parents, the community, and the Board in January. Parents and the community can then understand our challenges, our strategic plan, and offer their feedback and support for the direction. Board members serve in the Guiding Coalition and DAC, and ultimately, our elected Board members approve the plan. Beyond that, the strategic plan serves as a lens to view new initiatives so that we remain focused as an organization on our areas of greatest need.

While our areas of focus remain under development, I can share with you the broad topics that are emerging in our collective work. There are a series of interconnected factors at the center of our research and discussions. First is student attendance rates and high levels of chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is missing 10% or more school days. When you consider our current attendance rates along with the impact of the Pandemic, then you get our primary concern –  the percentage of our students who are not meeting grade-level expectations in key subject areas. In this case, we’re focusing on Math and English Language Arts, as both are foundational to other subjects like science and social studies. Finally, our third related area of focus is how many students feel disconnected from their schools and education. Naturally, if you don’t feel connected, attendance can lag, learning opportunities are reduced, and students struggle to meet grade-level expectations.

And this is where we need the understanding and assistance of parents. We face big and challenging issues that will take our collective effort to address and improve for our students. We are working hard to build relationships with parents, understand their situation, and help them prioritize education so all students can succeed. We need to collectively renew the understanding among parents and students that quality education is the greatest tool for the pursuit of one’s own goals for success in adulthood. It opens the doors to many options in early adulthood and even throughout one’s life. Education remains the best tool for breaking the cycle of poverty and allowing a family to make a generational leap in quality of life for their children and grandchildren. This leap occurs regardless of whether one goes to college or into a vocational/technical career. Education remains the opening chapter of the great American story, one that each student writes for themselves from the skills they develop in school. And that is why our strategic plan evolves and is so important.