SANCHEZ: Community-driven priorities

A team of parents, business leaders, teachers, principals and district administrators met from September 2008 to May 2009 to craft a powerful vision for the future of K-12 public education in Odessa. The process was facilitated by the Cambridge Group, a Plano-based strategic planning firm. During the course of the year, a vision for Ector County ISD’s role as a valued partner in creating a better future for our children was created. This was done in large groups and then in smaller, targeted action teams. The strategic plan has been posted for the community to see on the ECISD webpage since 2009.

Okay, why is this so important? In last week’s article, the focus was on the lessons the Board of Trustees has learned from top performing districts and key leaders in Texas and U.S. education and the action steps the Board is taking to allocate the resources. But, their work didn’t begin without a charge from the community. That charge came from the strategic plan.
The document lays out the community’s vision for a better community for not only students but all Odessans. With that said, let’s look at the first Strategic Priority in the plan: We will ensure learning experiences that are engaging, challenging, and meaningful.

The first word in the statement is “we.” This is important because “we” illustrates the need for everyone’s passion, expertise, dedication and talents to unite as one for the betterment of Odessa one student at a time. But beyond the obvious need for powerful partnerships, the first priority calls for engaging, challenging, and meaningful learning experiences. What does this look like? How does this happen?

The answer is our teachers, ECISDs most valuable resource only after our students. Let’s look at why our teachers are the key to success through a review of the speficic results listed under the first Strategic Priority.

• Guarantee high content levels, high cognitive levels, and real world applications in all classroom lesson delivery.
• Ensure the quantity of effective and innovative learning strategies with a focus on curiosity and discovery.
• Use quality assessments to guide instruction to include student reflections.
• Design and employ comprehensive, aligned ECISD curriculum documents to be utilized as non-negotiable teaching and learning criteria.
• Infuse focused professional development with fidelity of implementation and monitoring of effectiveness.
• Foster relationships and empower the students with the capacities to be successful within the school culture.

The 2008 team set a high bar, and ECISD teachers are up to the challenge. Every specific result requires the collaboration of multiple people, but two are extremely vital in each statement: students and teachers.

A review of the first Specific Result points to an obvious truth. Classroom lesson delivery designed to mirror the real world application as well as high content and thinking levels doesn’t happen without excellent teaching.

The second Specific Result clearly points toward the ECISD teacher as central to innovative learning strategies. The third Specific Result talks about quality assessments, which means student grades, test results, and other indicators of learning need to be evaluated for lesson planning and instruction, and who will do this? Correct! Ector County ISD teachers.
In reading through the remaining specific results, the same trend is found. Odessa becomes a better place to live, do business, raise a family, and make friends because of the work teachers do one student, one future graduate, one future college student, one future tax payer, one future business owner, one future community leader at a time.

The space on this page isn’t adequate enough to share all of the exceptional work accomplished in 2008 that continues to be the compass that provides direction for ECISD every day through every opportunity with every student. But, the hope is this one snapshot will draw Odessans to read through the Strategic Plan and renew their commitment to a better Odessa one student, one classroom, and one teacher at a time. Together, there is nothing the Odessa community cannot achieve for students.