Agenda - 11-10-1998 - Attachment #10

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Chapel Hill - Carrboro City Schools Strategic Planning Task Force A Vision for Education in the 21st Century Introduction In the Spring of 1996 the Chapel Hill- Carrboro City Schools' Board of Education approved a plan to create a Strategic Planning Task Force to make recommendations for directions and priorities for the upcoming five year period. The Task Force included representatives and leaders from the schools and the community. It was charged with producing a report by the Spring of 1997 offering a vision for education in the district as it moves into the 21 st century. The Task Force was to solicit broad input from the community through public meetings to ensure that the report had maximum support. The Board did not express explicit concerns that the Task Force was to address nor was the Task Force convened to address any particular problems. The Task Force was seen as a means to engage the broader community in the continuing process of making our good school system even better. In recent years, major reports have been written by task forces relating to the achievement of academically gifted and African- American students, inclusion of students with disabilities, as well as the capital needs of the district. The Strategic Planning Task Force reviewed these reports and other recent initiatives so that its report could build upon their work. During the last five years, the school system has addressed many crucial issues. The school system continues to face the challenge of identifying more effective strategies to support underachieving student populations, especially African Americans. Meeting the diversity of students' needs by strengthening the educational program to ensure the highest possible achievement for a'students remains the highest priority of the school district. Simultaneously, the district has dealt with the rapid growth of the student population and the consequent need to build new schools and expand programs and services. Site -based management, including the expanding role of school governance committees, has been strengthened at each of the district's schools On the state and national scene, several trends in public education have dominated the headlines. Current reform in public education places greater emphasis on addressing the needs of the individual student and providing greater freedom for parents and students to control the direction of their education. Advocates of school voucher systems propose to divert public education funds to privately controlled schools. Others are advocating for the creation of charter schools to provide an alternative setting for students who might benefit from them. Another trend is public school choice which allows parents to select the district school for their child to attend. Year -round schools are also being promoted in many districts. Schools are becoming more inclusive in an effort to meet better the needs of students with disabilities. The technological advances of the last decade have encouraged some systems to invest heavily in new technologies to prepare students to take full advantage of computers and electronic resources. Another educational initiative is character education which is being promoted through a wide variety of formal programs to address concerns about disrespect, intolerance and violence in the school setting. Variations on these trends are emerging as hot issues in our local district.