LAURINBURG — There are five goals for Scotland County Schools when it comes to its strategic plan, and on Monday the Scotland County Board of Education meeting got to hear those.

During the board meeting, Chief Accountability Officer Michael Riles gave an overview of the proposed strategic plan which included the five goals.

“We’ve come a very long way in a short period of time,” Riles said. “So to revisit we began with a leadership workshop among the school-based leadership and that focused on several school reform processes … from that we developed core values that each of the leadership took back to their team.”

The core values included high expectations, relationship, accountability, equity and safety.

Riles also shared the strategic focus areas that go along with the plan which include; safe and orderly environment, high expectations for success, positive home-school relations, opportunity to learn and instructional leadership.

The upcoming 2021-22 year will be a baseline year for the strategic plan, with 2022-23 being a benchmark year and with the final review coming in 2025-26.

“Our first goal is safe and orderly environment,” Riles said. “We aim to provide a safe school environment that supports the whole child … looking at school suspensions by 2026 the in and out school suspension incident rate will be reduced by 25%.”

Riles continued with high expectations for success which would create a climate of high expectations by which staff believe and demonstrate that all students can obtain mastery of the curriculum. Part of the goal for the goal includes that by 2026 the four-year cohort graduation rate will increase to meet or exceed 93% and 75% of all graduates will have received a minimum of two post-secondary credits or earn a silver or higher on the ACT WorkKeys assessment.

“Opportunities to learn we have associated the opportunities with equity so we want to increase access to opportunities not just for students but for staff,” Riles said. “Staff, families and overall community, with that we’re looking at student-centered practices so that we’re building instructional programs around students needs and what students are provided.”

On instructional leadership, Riles explained it’s to utilize human and fiscal capital responsibility to foster an environment conducive to learning. Part of this goal includes having zero audit findings by 2023.

“For beginning teachers, we’re looking to recruit and retain at a rate of 75%,” Riles said. “Goal four is slightly longer, so professional growth that 100% of staff will complete professional development aligned to their job and professional growth plan. So you’re not just growing in the classroom but extends to our maintenance department, transportation, everyone should grow to be a part of Scotland County Schools.”

Another part of instructional leadership will be that, by 202, 100% of the assistant principals in the district will complete the Future Ready Leadership program via the North Carolina Principal and Assistant Principal Association.

The last goal is to foster strategic collaboration for student success through trust and engagement among staff, families and community partners. Some ideas for this include a parent academy where parents will come in and learn what their students will be seeing in the curriculum and what their day is like from the time they get on the bus to the time they get off.

Reach Katelin Gandee at kgandee@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com