Ossining School District Asks for Feedback on Long Range Plan

After receiving input from parents, guardians, community members and staff, the Ossining School District has developed a draft of its new Long Range Plan. The Board of Education and administration are asking residents to review the plan and complete a short questionnaire on the district’s website.

The goals and structure of the Long Range Plan are aligned with the district’s Strategic Map, which focuses on the following three areas: Teacher Effectiveness, Student-Centered Environment and School-Community Partnerships. The draft proposal includes three pages of suggested initiatives. Examples include:

• Expanding instruction in STEM – science, technology, engineering and math.

• Providing training in instructional practices to strengthen teaching in reading and writing.

• Designing opportunities in the arts that reflect the variety of cultures in the schools.

• Expanding the world language courses offered to students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade.

• Fully developing the district’s Parent University.

• Increasing wrap-around services provided to students.

“My hope is that the suggested work will promote lasting transformations in our schools and community,” Superintendent Raymond Sanchez said.

The superintendent is requesting “warm” and “cool” feedback – warm for items people like and cool if they have questions about or issues with the content.

After gathering information from the surveys, the superintendent will share the community’s feedback with the Board of Education and present the Long Range Plan for trustees to consider and adopt in June.

The draft plan doesn’t include an implementation timeline, but the plan will take effect in September. The district will carefully consider how to phase in new initiatives over the next few years.

The school district began the process of developing a new Long Range Plan last year, holding multiple meetings with parents, guardians, community members, teachers and administrators. The superintendent arranged several meetings this year for students, staff and community members to share what they want for the school district. Others shared their comments in an online survey.

More details are available on the district's Long Range Plan Web page.