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By NOAH WORTHAM | Staff Writer

COLUMBIANA – Shelby County Schools has launched a new strategic plan that will serve as a roadmap for the district’s efforts during the next several years.

The Shelby County Schools Board of Education approved a new strategic plan during its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, Sept. 28.

“I am pleased to present the new Strategic Plan for the Shelby County School District,” Superintendent Lewis Brooks said. “The plan is the result of comprehensive research, strategy sessions and collaboration with our Senior Leadership Team and the District Leadership Cabinet.”

The new strategic plan is the result of more than two years of research planning.

“We have been working on analyzing our strategic plan for the last two or three years,” Brooks said. “We have been working with parents and students and with our teachers through our V.O.I.C.E. ( Vision, Openness, Insight, Communication and Engagement) meetings. We’ve had district team leadership meetings, cabinet meetings. We’ve had all of our stakeholders investing and putting together what we feel like will help propel our kids to the next level in their educational journey.”

The new strategic plan includes new vision, mission and belief statements that reflect the district’s commitment to strive for excellence as an organization for its students and staff.

“I want you to pay close attention to two words in this document that we feel like we will use a great deal moving forward (and) that’s ‘empowering’ and ‘inspiring,’” Brooks said. “We feel like those two words will really help us with the things that we’re planning to do with our district.”

The plan, “Empowering and Inspiring Excellence… The Path Forward,”  derives its name from the new mission statement, “to empower and inspire our students to achieve academic excellence and make a positive contribution to the world.”

“Our mission has always been to be a model of excellence in education, but we feel like we needed to communicate who that’s for and why,” Brooks said. “The strategic commitments we feel are important for us are innovation, community partners, leadership development, recruitment, retention and organizational commitment. All of these things continue to come to fruition in our schools every day.”

Brooks said the school system always wants to make sure that those commitments are also surrounded by communication, continuous improvement, professional learning and fiscal responsibility.

“We believe very strongly that this document and the information contained in it are the things that will move us forward as a district,” he said.

Those interested in learning more about the school systems new plan may visit Shelbyed.k12.al.us/page/vision.