BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE — Bradford County School District has a new strategic plan in place that lays out its goals, strategies, expectations and activities moving forward.
Superintendent of Schools Will Hartley said the hard work that went into the document is evident. Placed in the hands of Assistant Superintendent Karen Clarke, many administrators, teachers school employees and community groups had a hand in the plan, which sets goals for student success, talent management, school safety and security, fiscal and operational responsibility, and communication and community engagement.
From the one-page plan drafted in 2018, Hartley said the district now has a plan for the future to be proud of. The document in its final format was designed by Matt Whytsell.
Hartley said it will be a living and breathing document, revisited regularly to updates and expansion.
Clarke said the plan addresses some core areas and how the district can become great in these areas.
“Obviously, student success is at the top of that, but a lot of the things underneath contribute to that student success. So you want to make sure that you have that intentional effort towards those goals so we can become a premier school district,” she said.
In some cases, strategies in progress were refined. In others, different ways were defined to attack some issues.
“A lot of this just goes into making sure that the community — all of our stakeholders, parents, students, staff members — know where we’re headed and what those focus areas are,” she said.
Goals include increasing the number of students scoring at or above grade level on required assessments; increasing acceleration opportunities for students; providing training and development to increase retention of high-quality employees; recruiting a more talented and diverse pool of applicants; and improving behavioral support and social-emotional learning for all students. They also include improving the district’s financial position, enhancing financial transparency, and improving communication within the district and with the community.
A copy of the strategic plan will be made available online at www.bradfordschools.org.
Admins tasked with problem solving
The strategic plan update began as a project Hartley was completing for a Northeast Florida Educational Consortium program. Improvement in Starke Elementary School’s science scores by 13 percentage points was a project completed by Principal Raymond Schaefer for a leadership program he recently completed.
With that in mind, Hartley said he is asking all administrators to take up a project based on what they see as their biggest need. When completed, those projects will be presented to the school board with a plan to tackle that need. That will be followed by a midyear update and a final report at year’s end.
“I’m excited about this because I know this forces you to be very intentional about a specific need that you have. And just like Mr. Schaefer, you see the end result of that,” Hartley said.
Grants, curriculum focus on early readers
Clarke also discussed a High Impact Reading Grant the district has received to boost reading performance in early elementary grades. The grant will allow the district to hire a reading intervention teacher for Southside Elementary School and reading tutor paraprofessionals for Starke and Lawtey Elementary schools.
This is the second such grant, with the prior funding two additional positions.
On top of that, the district will be implementing a supplementary reading curriculum from the University of Florida known as UFLI Foundations. It is simple to implement with clear lesson plans for teachers and targets grades K-2, Clark said.
“What we’re finding is that while in kindergarten I think we’re doing a pretty decent job, we’re seeing drop-offs at first and then again at second. So, we get the third grade where students need to really read to learn, and there’s big gaps in foundational skills,” she said.
UFLI touts itself as a curriculum developed for teachers, by teachers and with teachers. It includes opportunities for professional development, but using the lessons is enough for teachers to learn more about the process of “reading acquisition, key linguistic elements necessary for reading, and evidence-based instructional methods that promote reading proficiency.”
