WCUUSD is a strong district with strong schools and communities. We have worked closely together as a Board and school community to develop a strong mission and to focus our instructional energies on ensuring that all of our students find success in our schools and in life after school. We have also spent time understanding the importance of deep community engagement, with an emphasis on seeking and raising voices from our communities that have been absent in the past. 

In order to develop this vision, we have begun the process of developing a Strategic Plan for Washington Central. In building our plan, we knew that we wanted a process that would:

• Engage a wide variety of stakeholders (faculty, staff, community, students and regional partners) in the process
• Take into account our current realities related to enrollment and structure, allowing the district to develop sustainable structures to provide the robust programming we seek for all of our students
• Have a clear focus on deep, meaningful community engagement that includes those voices that are traditionally underrepresented in education conversations
• Include relevant expertise from the organization in educational system work
  

Phase I Overview (March – June, 2022)

Phase I was about laying the groundwork for our plan – designing for community engagement and facilitating community conversations The goal of these initial conversations was to listen to our community identify their core values. These values will then, in turn, serve as a compass or “north star” to guide board decisions, budget allocations, and decision making at the district level and at individual schools.

During this process, we used surveys, virtual and in person events and drop-ins in each of our schools to discuss four questions:

1. What are the hopes and dreams that our community has for our young people?
2. What are the core values that should guide the WCUUSD as we make important decisions?
3. What skills and qualities are most important for our students?
4. How will our young people know WCUUSD cares for and about them?

The themes from this input resulted in a first draft of the WCUUSD Vision & Core Beliefs. During the second Phase (July – September), we will be taking these drafts and bringing them back out to the community – through more concrete focus groups and conversations. Eventually, this will help us develop goals and action steps for the Strategic Plan.