District Stategic Plan

Deer Valley Unified School District Strategic Plan

The district improvement process is being redesigned to reflect the components of the Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence. The goal of this initiative is to identify the elements of school improvement and organizational development that must be supported in every school in order to promote high levels of student achievement. Access to quality education and engagement in meaningful classroom learning opportunities are the most critical factors in the success of each student in Deer Valley schools. As the Strategic Planning Steering Committee approached the task of developing an Organizational Profile and Process Map to guide learning and decision-making, committee members acknowledged the importance of soliciting input and listening to the many voices in our community.
In order for this revised school improvement process to be successful, the entire staff and representatives from all stakeholder groups must be engaged in the process. The process includes updating the organization's mission, vision and core values. The mission statement is a description of the purpose of the organization and the vision statement is how the organization will operate. Deer Valley will continue to collect data from students, parents, staff, and community members in order to understand the goals and outcomes important to each group. Surprisingly, the data analysis from student Think Tanks has revealed that we have more similarities than differences in the goals deemed essential for each student and each school during the next several years. Currently we have four priority areas important to the community: student learning, employee development, stakeholder satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness and efficiency. The district will focus its efforts and resources in accomplishing specific objectives in the identified goal areas.

Priority Area: Student Learning

• Goal 1: Students will demonstrate proficiency in essential skills in reading, mathematics and science.
• Goal 2: Students will demonstrate mastery of 21st century skills in communication, collaboration, organization, critical thinking and technology. Skills will be integrated into language arts, mathematics, science and social studies.
• Goal 3: District graduates will be college and/or career ready.

Priority Area: Employee Development

• Goal 1: Ensure a highly performing workforce.
• Goal 2: Provide salaries and benefits that are competitive with comparable districts in Arizona.

Priority Area: Stakeholder Satisfaction

• Goal 1: Ensure each student's sense of well-being and engagement in school.
• Goal 2: Ensure that district is a best place to work for all employees.
• Goal 3: Increase parent and community satisfaction with district/ school programs and services.
• Goal 4: Increase parent and community engagement with schools and the district.
• Goal 5: Recruit and retain students residing in district boundaries.

Priority Area: Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency

• Goal 1: Align fiscal resource allocation and expenditures with strategic goals and school goals.
• Goal 2: Increase amount of revenue and value of in-kind contributions generated from alternative funding sources.
• Goal 3: Improve the cost effectiveness in operation of district facilities.
• Goal 4: Implement systems approach for continuous improvement at classroom, school, department, and district level.
• Goal 5: Ensure quality programs and services throughout the district.

The district will communicate its progress toward these goals through website updates, presentations at Governing Board meetings, face-to-face meetings, and district publications.