In June 2014, the Board approved the framework for the development of the Board’s
strategic plan for 2015-2019. The framework outlined a six phase process which would lead to the presentation of a draft plan in May 2015.
During December 2014 and January 2015, the District ran the #EverySchool_EveryVoice public consultation process to dialogue with stakeholders to identify priorities for the next strategic plan. The consultation had 13,494 unique participants who contributed 42,026 thoughts and assigned 649,026 stars to help prioritize thoughts.
In addition to the public consultation, the District compiled an Environmental Scan report to assess the current facts and figures impacting our schools and the District. This report and the results from the public consultation were assessed by the Board and senior staff at a strategic planning retreat held in February 2015. At the retreat, the Board and senior staff also reviewed the current OCDSB 2011-2015 Strategic Plan objectives to ensure they had been sufficiently embedded in the culture of the District, or whether there were objectives to be carried forward. From these discussions, key themes and priority areas began to emerge.
In April 2015, the Board and senior staff came together again for a second strategic planning session to revisit the emerging themes and to refine their collective understanding of the new strategic priorities. This conversation brought much clarity to the five priority areas and they were refined to: Learning; Well-Being; Engagement; Equity; and Stewardship. The Board also felt it was important to build on the ongoing work related to our recently established “Exit Outcomes”- the set of characteristics and skills that we expect of our graduates.
As an important final step in the strategic planning process, from 20 May to 12 June the District consulted with stakeholders on the draft 2015-2019 strategic plan. This consultation created a formal opportunity for stakeholders to share their perspectives on our draft plan to ensure they see themselves in the vision of the District.
On 22 June 2015 the strategic plan was revised based on feedback from the consultation and approved by the Board of Trustees.