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=Welcome to our TISD Five-Year Stategic Plan Wiki!=

Approval of the Five-Year Strategic Plan: October 17, 2011
The TISD Board of Trustees approved the Five-Year Strategic Plan as presented at the October 17th meeting. Disemination to the faculty and staff of TISD began, as well as posting the plan to the TISD website. The district owes a many thanks to the members of the Five-Year Plan committee for their active participation, their foresight, and their deep dedication to the needs of Tarkington ISD students and the community as a whole. Please note the names of the members, and when you see one or more of them, please tell they how much we appreciate their service.

Presentation to the School Board: September 19, 2011
Dorothy McCreight, Paula Opp, and Jim Smith presented the final Five-Year Strategic Plan for 2011-2016 to the Tarkington ISD Board of Trustees. McCreight also gave the Board the lists of needs from which the Five-Year Committee The Board asked questions about needs and will consider the plan at a subsequent meeting.

Meeting #9: June 8th at TIS library
The committee approved the strategies and action plans. It was agreed that Dorothy McCreight would tie up loose ends and edit the document. At that point, she would e-mail the draft to committee members to give feedback before the plan was presented to the School Board.

The draft was e-mailed to the committee and two members gave suggestions. The plan was revised and submitted to the superintendent. Final edits were made.

Meeting # 8: April 14, 2011 at TIS library
The Five-Year Plan committee discussed the correlation between the Five-Year Plan and the District Improvement Plan (DIP), that the Five-Year Plan would point the way for the forthcoming DIPs.

Focus groups formulated strategies or action plans to accomplish goals and objectives. The results are shown in the Goals at the left of this website. The focus groups shared results with the whole committee and sought feedback.

The committee will have one last meeting to go over the entire plan on June 8th.

Meetings # 6 & 7: March 23 and 24, 2011 at TIS library
The Five-Year Plan Committee continued working on the objectives and began working on action plans that would satisfy the objectives. This is still a work-in-progress, and the committee will meet again April 14th to continue this work.

Meeting #4 and #5: February 16 and 17, 2011 at TIS library
the Five-Year Plan Committee began the February 16th meeting by reviewing the needs we had generated in January and then prioritizing them in different categories. We then formed focus committees that reviewed the needs of the district, keeping in mind the Beliefs, Parameters and Vision, in order to write the GOALS of the Five-Year Plan. (//See the menu to the left of this page for information on the Goals//.)

The committee will next meet on Wednesday, March 23rd and Thursday, March 24th to complete work on the objectives and strategies that will fulfil the goals. And from that point, we will establsh action plans to ensure that we meet the objectives and goals--thereby meeting the needs of our students, teachers, parents, and community.

This committee remains very dedicated to writing this Five-Year Plan. Members have committed their time and effort, and our school and community are fortunate to have folks who care so deeply. Thank you committee!

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Next Meetings: Wednesday, February 16th and Thursday, February 17th 6-8:00 p.m. TIS library
Please go to the Needs page and examine needs as presented at our last meeting. Prioritize the needs in your mind, and we'll discuss this as groups. If you were not at the last meeting and your name is not on a focus group, we will add you at the next meeting. The Culture committee is pretty full, so think about joining one of the groups with fewer members.

Besides considering needs, we will produce goals and objectives in these two meetings. This is the beginning of the nuts and bolts of our planning, where we begin talking less in generalities and more about specifics. We look forward to continued productive meetings.

Meeting #2 and #3: January 19 and 20, 2011 at 6:00 at Tarkington Intermediate School Library
What great participation we are having in our strategic planning meetings! Twenty-six members were able to make Wednesday's meeting and thirty-one on Thursday. We came away from these meetings with strong drafts of Beliefs, Vision, and Parameters for our strategic plan, all of which gave us a renewed purpose to address the school district's needs in a time of possibly decreased State funding. One possibility discussed is that our five-year plan may be extended to a seven-year plan should funding be cut; however at this point, we are proceeding on the basis that we will have the same funding next year.

Please see the pages to your left for the drafts of Beliefs, Needs, and Parameters.

Additionally, quite a few folks addressed the committee to present the needs of their campuses, their programs, their disciplines and the district as a whole. From these presentations and from ideas of committee members, we now have a list of needs (and wishes) to consider. Our committee broke into small groups to begin analyzing needs, and we will continue the analysis on the wiki, communicating ideas until our next meetings, which will be Wednesday, February 16th and Thursday, February 17th from 6 - 8 PM at the Intermediate School library.

At the next meetings we will complete the prioritization of needs and establish specific goals and objectives to meet these needs.

**First Meeting: January 6th, 2011 6:30 at the Administration Building**
We had a fantastic first meeting of the Tarkington ISD Five-Year Strategic Planning Committee. Thirty-nine caring parents, community members, students and educators attended the first session.

First the committee reviewed the purpose of and steps in strategic planning, set ground rules and level of involvement, and then broke into groups, coming up with at least seven and then sharing three of our basic beliefs, not only about education but about life in general. See the "Beliefs" page on the menu on the left-hand side of this page for the ideas expressed by the committee. //Feel free to add, build upon or develop those beliefs written.//

Members also discussed their aspirations for TISD, and //they will write their own aspiration(s) on the page titled "Aspirations."// Aspirations are basically what we want for our students to have as a result of attending and graduating from TISD.

The committee voted to hold the next meetings on two consecutive nights, Wednesday/Thursday, and to meet for three hours each night. The committee will vote today and tomorrow on whether to meet on January 12 & 13 or to meet on January 19 & 20. The definite meeting date, time and place will be posted on Sunday (1/9) via wiki and e-mail.

At the next meeting the committee will determine the beliefs, the vision, the mission statement and the parameters for the strategic plan. Also the committee will analyze needs and resources of the school district. In preparation for this, committee members were asked to come with a list of needs and resources.

A huge thank you goes to all of the committee. Your enthusiasm and participation will make this project successful.

A wiki? What is a wiki and how will we use it in our five-year planning process?
A wiki is an electronic communication tool that enables members to disseminate information and to collaborate on a project. You can browse, create or edit the contents of a wiki without special technology training. You only need access to a computer with an Internet connection. Basically, a wiki is a database for browsing, searching, and creating information, while constantly "under revision." Possibly the most well-known wiki is //Wiki-pedia//, the online encyclopedia with "millions of contributors and editors." (TeachersFirst).

Our wiki will allow the Five-Year Planning Committee to access information about the planning process, to keep abreast of new information, and to be able to communicate with other committee members readily and easily. At first it may be a simple communication tool, but as we break into focus committees and truly write the plan, one member can write part of the plan, another can add to that, and still another can edit the information. This collaborative process, done from home or office, will lessen the time and the frequency of meetings

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 * Click on the help link above to learn more about how to use our wiki.