Introduction

When I assumed my role as superintendent of Grand Island Public Schools, I challenged us to Dream, Design, and Achieve. This charge allowed us to create an open canvas on which we could draw collective hopes and aspirations for our students and school district. In my first few months, I talked with more than 2,800 of you about your dreams for education in our community. Those conversations were filled with big ideas and hope for the future of our children. They also revealed many wonderful things about GIPS—all of them driven by the passionate, intelligent, caring, and committed people I see regularly in our school hallways and classrooms, in the Kneale Administration Building offices, in school board seats, and in the shops and streets of our community. To our students, teachers, support staff, principals, district leaders, school board members, families, community leaders, and residents, I am humbled to work with and among you.

Through those conversations, I also learned about our opportunities to evolve, to reach higher and farther and work better together to make sure every one of our students thrives during and beyond his or her time at GIPS. This is not just about making sure our students pass a test; it is about supporting them to identify and pursue their interests, passions, and dreams while equipping them with essential knowledge and skills—critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, communication, and resilience, among others—to help them become leaders in their chosen field and in their community.

Achieving this goal fully will require the entire Grand Island community working together. We will need to open our minds to innovative ideas, partner in new ways, and adjust our current practices. This will involve some challenging—but also incredibly important—work. Making sure the district is as focused as possible in our next steps, GIPS engaged a group of educational experts at Cross & Joftus to dig deeper into these opportunities, provide us with ideas for moving forward, and facilitate a group of stakeholders to create this strategic plan.

This plan marks a critical transition from my entry to my leadership of a district focused on continuous innovation and improvement. It incorporates everything we have uncovered together over the past months and charts our course for moving forward. It is an ambitious course, one centered on achieving results for all of our students and making sure we are deploying our resources strategically towards the goals.

We are constantly looking at ways to improve our systems from how we design curriculum to how we deliver it, from how we plan schools to how we keep them clean and updated, and from how we operate our budget to how we feed our students.

The strategic plan recognizes the need for us to continue to grow as individuals and as a district in our practices with a focus on providing a stellar educational experience to each student in every classroom without exception.

It is important to note while this plan sets our path for achieving results, we will be constantly evaluating and monitoring our progress and the impact of its strategies. As reflective leaders, we will make adjustments along the way to ensure we evolve as a district and reach our ultimate goals.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the teachers, principals, students, support staff, district leaders, school board members, parents, and community partners who worked together to set our path in the following pages. A school district cannot take on a bold plan such as this by itself. It is promising to know that we, as a public educational institution, are not alone. This community has always played a major role in the progressive efforts on behalf of our students and will continue to do so long into the future.

I am fully committed to supporting the district in achieving the plan’s strategies. I am convinced, by working together, we will make these goals a reality for our students.

We will educate the whole child. Every student will graduate future ready. Our students will succeed.

It is not about our past school experiences; it is about our students’ futures.

The content and depth of input we received from our stakeholders in the making of this strategic plan is beyond impressive. More importantly, all nine members of the Board of Education are grateful to everyone who participated in the strategy discussions or submitted feedback in some form. The Grand Island Public Schools belong to our community; it has been humbling to witness the immense care and concern that Grand Island has displayed for our most valuable treasure: Our children.

Now that the “what’s” and the “why’s” have been identified, we need to move to the critical “how” and “when." Some of you may feel we are moving too fast and changing too much, while others will ask why we cannot get changes implemented faster. Regardless of how you feel about the speed of change, you can trust that before any changes are implemented, they will be researched, analyzed, vetted, and communicated. Once implemented, they will be monitored and adjusted as needed.

There will be hurdles to clear and roadblocks to work around as we implement the strategies laid out in this plan. Often the first reaction to a new, bold, innovative idea is to express all the reasons why it will not work. I am constantly amazed at the attitude of our GIPS staff, from central administration staff to teachers in the classroom to all of our support personnel. They are passionate about doing what is right for kids and creative in finding ways to get over and around hurdles and roadblocks. With the support of the community and parents, I am confident that together we can find all the reasons why it will work and then make the changes needed to ensure all of our students succeed.

At GIPS, a higher percentage of students depend on us for meals and additional supports compared to many other school districts in the state of Nebraska. I recently attended a meeting with leaders from school districts similar to ours. There, experts shared strategies for improving achievement for all students and closing achievement gaps between demographic groups. There was one comment that really hit home for me and reinforced why we are going through this process: If a school district is successful in raising the achievement for all children, the community reaps the future benefit of improved economic and lifestyle conditions for all citizens. It has been done in other cities. It can and will be done here in Grand Island.

As a Board of Education member, my favorite days of the year include high school graduations. There are a total of eight graduations between mid-year and spring during which we celebrate the accomplishments of approximately 500 students. As board president, I have the privilege of signing each graduate’s diploma. I truly enjoy this task; no rubber-stamping for me! I take time to read each child’s name and, with my signature, pass along hopeful thoughts and wishes for a fulfilled and successful life beyond GIPS. I also hope we have done all we can to help our students be successful in whatever they choose to do after high school.

The world our graduates are entering is so much different from the world I entered when I left school in 1981. The tools they need to navigate today’s world include skills, knowledge, and grit I did not need when I was 18. From the graduating class of 2017 and for all future graduates, there will be even more changes. Our goal for this strategic plan is to ensure that GIPS is evolving and adapting as needed to make sure all children are prepared for their future reality. I look forward to watching that goal become our reality.

Grand Island is a vibrant community. As the fourth largest city in Nebraska, it serves as a manufacturing, retail, medical, and entertainment hub and has a thriving agricultural economy. Unlike many Midwestern cities, Grand Island continues to grow with new residents attracted to jobs in the community each year. Over the past 10 years, Grand Island Public Schools has grown by 20 percent and has become significantly more diverse. It now serves students from a range of ethnic, cultural, and language backgrounds with Hispanic students representing the largest portion of its student population.

The district has long worked to make sure its students have what they need to be successful in school and beyond. GIPS has invested in 1:1 technology, created a leading- edge Career Pathways Institute, and adopted best practices at the district, school, and classroom levels. Chief among GIPS’ assets are its educators, leaders, and staff who are highly committed to working together to ensure students’ success. GIPS is also buoyed by a strong, supportive community which continues to place a value on education through investments of time and resources.

Grand Islanders are proud of the size and diversity of their district. They also recognize that attending to the needs of a diverse student population is not without challenges. Many students, especially children of immigrant families, students learning English, students with disabilities, and students living in poverty, require supports beyond solid- core instruction to meet their academic, physical, emotional, language, and other needs. For students already achieving at high levels, this means providing opportunities for extended learning and access to more rigorous coursework.

Achievement data show that more work is needed to ensure that every student graduates from Grand Island Senior High ready for his or her next steps in life. Eliminating achievement gaps while continuing to support all students in reaching higher levels of learning will be critical to the long-term success of not only students but also the Grand Island community.