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Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools is developing its 2025-30 Strategic Plan and asking for input from community stakeholders. One respondent to the Strategic Plan Survey will win an Amazon gift card.

The current five-year strategic plan was developed in 2019 and established goals for the district related to student achievement, equity and access, community engagement, human resource development, and climate and safety. Since then, education has drastically changed, most notably because of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Board of Education Vice Chair Alexandre Bohannon, a co-leader for the next strategic plan, says it’s important that the district adjust its educational strategies to reflect new circumstances that affect schools. He also emphasized the plan as a concrete way to commit to continual improvement and establish concrete metrics for evaluating success.

“Your strategic plan is supposed to be your north star that guides your organization in what its goals are and how you’re going to achieve them,” Bohannon said. “No matter what kind of organization you’re a part of, if you don’t have a strategic plan, you’re going to be operating very loosely.”

Alexandra Hoskins, the district’s executive director of systems of coherence and strategic planning and the other co-leader for the new plan, says that the goals identified in the current plan are still relevant, but the new plan is a chance to identify new priorities. 

“As for what those priorities will be, it will depend on the feedback the district receives from stakeholders over the next few months,” said Hoskins.

The steering committee for the new plan includes representatives from the board of education, district administrators, teachers, students, parents and more. The committee has already met several times, and now the focus shifts to gathering input from the wider community about what the district is already doing well, as well as what needs to change.

The first input collection phase will last through January, and the committee will create a draft strategic plan in February. In March, the draft will be available for public review, and it will be revised based on further feedback in April with hopes of proposing it for the board of education’s approval in May. Leaders hope that this timeline will give stakeholders all over the district plenty of chances to make their concerns heard.

Stakeholders across Winston-Salem and Forsyth County are encouraged to take part in the “We Listen” campaign as the first widespread public resource to provide feedback about the next five-year plan. The best possible outcome for students, as well as the communities they will grow up to contribute to, will require as many voices as possible to be heard.

To complete the feedback form, visit clemmonscourier.net to view the online version of this story.

The feedback form is available in English and Spanish on the WS/FCS website.