The area encompassed by the Good Spirit School Division (GSSD) has undergone many changes over the past five years, and now it's time to plan for the next five. The GSSD has put together a strategic plan for the future, and is planning to unveil it on August 29.
Dwayne Reeve, Director of Education, explains that the new plan, which was facilitated by Laura Soparlo Consulting, involved first listening to people in the community in November 2011, and continued over months with focus groups, surveys and public meetings. He says it's taken a long amount of time to go through the information collected and make a plan for the division.
The cost of bringing in an external consultant was $20,000, and Reeve says that the staff put in a great deal of time into the project as well.
Reeve explains that a plan is necessary because the division has been working with their initial plan over the past six years, which doesn't account for changes that the division has seen since that plan was put in place.
"We have seen some contextual changes, if you look at what has been happening around us from an economic standpoint.
"We've also had significant changes in terms of staffing and also some changes in accountability to the government. It was time for us to look at where we wanted to go in the next five years."
One thing that won't be changing is the division's primary focus, Reeve says, with the student being the center of the division's efforts. He says that keeping the student the priority was something that was a consistent theme in the consultations, and he says some of the planned initiatives will keep that in a greater and sharper focus.
The unveiling of the plan itself will be a major event, with the nearly 1,000 staff members being brought together at the Gallagher Centre Flexi-Hall, with tickets also being available to members of the public. As well as the unveiling of the strategic plan, Canadian athlete and motivational speaker Mark Tewksbury will be speaking at the event. Tewksbury has won gold, silver and bronze in swimming at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, and has held 21 national titles and seven world records.. This will be Tewksbury's first speaking achievement after his role as chef de mission a the London Olympics this summer.
"We haven't brought all of our staff together since we began as a school division in January 2006, so it's not an event we do on a regular basis, but we did want to kick it off with an opportunity for people to hear from a top quality speaker who speaks to the importance of change, personal commitment and high levels of performance. There's no better person to do that than an Olympic gold medalist."
He says that this plan is an exciting development for the division, and it's appropriate to kick off the next five years with someone who captures what the plan will mean to the division in the next five years.
