Morris Plains District Continues to Shape 5-Year Plan

District Superintendent Dr. Ernest Palestis spoke at last week's meeting about the status of the Strategic Planning Process, the process that the board and the community are currently working on to create a five-year plan for a new vision for the district.

The process is three-quarters of the way through, after having a meeting last month to discuss feedback from the community.

The meeting took place on May 4 and 5 at the , where all of the subcommittees and other volunteers involved in the process came together to discuss their research and information they've found.

Together, they brainstormed and created a vision for the Morris Plains School District: "Preparing all learners to excel in a changing world."

A Strategic Planning summary written by board liaison Scott Bober was distributed last Tuesday night, and it explained what went on at the meeting last month and the next steps being taken to create the vision for the district.

Bober stated that they came across the district's vision by using survey results as a guideline.

Back in March, the board of education that included 15 questions for residents to rate a variety of resources in the town.

Palestis said the survey results were helpful in creating the next steps of the Strategic Plan. The results showed that citizens are concerned about finance, and expressed a desire for increased communication in the school and improved use of technology.

"The survey really helped us considerably, and it helped spark conversation in our Strategic Planning Weekend," Palestis said.

From these results, there were four Action Plan Committees formed at the meeting to "help develop specific strategics to guide the implementation" for the plan; Student Achievement, Finance, Communications and Technology.

All committees have a chairperson and a goal to meet. The next phase of the process will be in September and October where all of the committees will meet and come up with a written plan.

The committees will report back to the Board of Education in November with their findings.

All members of the Morris Plains community who have contributed to the process, including taxpayers, parents, staff members, local law enforcement, among others, were some of the volunteers on Tuesday night.

While this is an ongoing process, Palestis said anyone in the community still has the opportunity to have their voice heard for how they wish to see the district in five years.

"What I think is very important for the community to understand about the strategic plan is that there's still an opportunity to participate," he said. "We have the four goals, but now we need people to help us develop a specific action plan."