Our public schools serve students best when we have widespread collaboration between educators, administrators, parents, students and community members in developing the mission and vision for our schools. As school board members, we are deeply committed to that collaboration and partnership and a strategic planning process that offers everyone in our communities the opportunity to have input.

We are about to begin developing the next set of strategic plans for the Five Town CSD (Camden Hills Regional High School) and School Administrative District 28 (Camden-Rockport K-8) school districts and we will be sharing ways for everyone to be involved.

We’ll be seeking input this school year through a series of community focus groups and the strategic planning committee will be formed next year.

The current four-year plans, each developed through year-long processes with significant community input, allowed us to think deeply about the learning environments we wanted to create for our students and educators. Together we defined the values, missions, and goals for our districts and offered roadmaps for administrators and educators to strengthen teaching and learning.

For the Five Town CSD, our current strategic goals center around teaching and learning with a meaningful curriculum, engaging instruction and providing students a foundation to be able to pursue their goals after high school; a school culture that provides a healthy and safe environment and supports the development of strong personal character; and resource management that balances educational opportunity with fiscal responsibility and environmental responsibility.

SAD 28’s strategic goals focus on a healthy learning environment that meets the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of students and supports staff wellness; teaching and learning with a curriculum, instruction and assessments that provide a continuum of learning opportunities that create engagement and allow students to thrive; and effective management of the middle school campus project.

We hear progress on these goals each month at our school board meetings and are continually blown away by the innovation, passion and commitment by those charged with turning these goals into action and demonstrating results—project-based learning embedded into the curriculum; expanded social and emotional learning for all students; pioneering outdoor-based learning opportunities at all schools and developing the state’s first outdoor-based pre-k program at a public school; sustainability efforts to cut waste and increase wind, solar and geothermal power; expanded efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion; supports and professional development for educators to achieve results on these goals; the successful opening of our incredible new middle school; and so much more.

And while the pandemic certainly presented an unbelievable amount of challenges for educators and students, these goals ended up being crucial to providing the academic as well social, emotional and health supports our students needed and why our districts weathered things so much better than most.

We are fortunate to live in an area with such a bounty of natural and community resources available and there are countless ways to connect our students with those resources. We need your input and ideas to build upon the successes in our schools and to plot the course for the next four years of public education in our communities. Stay tuned for details on the community focus groups and other opportunities to join the next strategic planning process. And as always, we invite you to join our monthly board meetings for regular updates on the great work happening in our schools.

Rebecca Flanagan is chair and Marcia Dietrich is vice chair of the Five Town CSD Board of Directors.

Patrick McCafferty is chair and Marcus Mrowka is vice chair of the School Administrative District 28 (Camden Rockport Schools) Board of Directors.