Strategic Priorities

Our vision of “educating modern thinkers who create, care, solve, and discover,” requires students to demonstrate their modern learning skills; critical and creative thinking, effective communication and productive collaboration. One of the things that was made abundantly clear from the feedback at our March, 2019 committee meeting was the fact that our students must be mentally and emotionally available for learning first, before we can expect them to truly be modern learners.  The district has undertaken many significant initiatives over the past few years in recognition of this fact, and we will continue to emphasize the importance of the mental and emotional wellness of our students and staff going forward. For that reason, we have added Commitment #6, which is to “Incorporate our understandings of the importance of mental and emotional health and well being into our thinking as we design learning experiences and environments for all learners. “

Our Five Commitments and associated Action Steps are all designed to support teachers as they thoughtfully design experiences that, “engage all students in learning experiences that inspire lifelong learning and empower each for their future.” Each of our six schools designed and executed its own Building-Based Learning Plan in 2018-2019 and will again in 2019-2020 that share the commitments of Strategic Priority One. Our Office of Instruction, Pupil Services, Instructional Technology, and Health, Physical Education and Athletic Department designed their plans to assist each school in accomplishing its goals.  Our mosaic of coordinated efforts has helped us be more purposeful as we promoting modern learning for our students and high quality professional learning for our staff.

A main feature of our strategic planning committee work in 2019 was to establish a set of “look fors” so that we all know exactly what our students are doing, hearing, seeing, and feeling when they are experiencing high quality modern learning.  These look fors will become the basis for dialogue among educators about the effectiveness of the learning experiences we offer to our students. Traditional assessment, and the data derived from them, will always have a place in the conversation about the impact we have on student learning.  However, the greater emphasis will be on how often, and under what conditions, we see our students engaged in purposefully designed experiences that promote student efficacy and agency, and do so in classes that are truly learning communities built upon trusting and productive relationships. 

The Hamburg Central School District, through the Office of the Superintendent and Office of Community Relations, will communicate with its stakeholders with honesty, consistency and one clear voice. We will do so using an array of methods that reflect the diverse needs and interests of our community. 

We are proud of our efforts to improve our internal communications. The Bulldog Bulletin staff newsletter, launched in 2017-18, is one way in which we are highlighting the great things happening in each of our schools.  Arranging our team of 18 administrators into triads of Peer Partners has also had the effect of significantly improving internal communication.  

Social media use will be an important part of our communication strategy going forward.  The Superintendent, District Curriculum Office, Technology Integrator, Building Principals and many of our teachers are very active on Twitter, and other social media platforms.  It is having the effect of connecting our teachers who work in different buildings, sharing pictures and videos showing the exciting things that are happening in their respective classrooms.  Also, our series of promotional videos debuted in 2017-18, capitalizing on the power of social media as a way for Hamburg Central to “tell its story.”

Engaging the community in two-way communication is another of our priorities. Part of our outreach involves “going to where people are,” rather than relying on them to come to us. The avenues of communication are kept open through our memberships in community organizations, participation in public events and speaking engagements. This allows us to reach stakeholders other than parents.  In that same context, the district connects with the community-at-large through its Senior Citizen Volunteer Program and Continuing Education Program. Both these programs invite community members into our buildings so that they are interacting with us, feeling connected and gaining an appreciation of their public schools.

Finally, we will continue to carefully manage our media profile through our external communication strategy. 

The Hamburg Central School District is committed to our mission of “engaging all students in learning experiences that inspire lifelong learning and empower each for their future.”  The proposed 2019-2020 budget supports our commitment by adding positions in key areas of need. Strategic Priority #3 helps assure that we sustain the progress we’ve made in every area of our Strategic Action Plan by assuring that our budget decisions reflect the Strategic Priorities that have been identified by our stakeholders through our continuous strategic planning cycle. 

Second, it is important that we carefully analyze our use of space. Planning for our Legacy 2020 Capital Project is underway, bringing stakeholders together to engage in dialogue about how our academic spaces, athletic facilities and visual and performing arts rooms will be used to support modern learning into the middle of this century. Together we are prioritizing our needs so that our next capital project results in a redesigned physical plant can be used to more effectively support productive collaboration, effective communication and critical and creative thinking.

As always, we recognize the importance of continually assessing and implementing new policies and procedures designed to keep staff, students and visitors as safe as possible while in our buildings and all of our campuses.  Our philosophy of softening the environment while hardening the target has included a full day of Youth Mental Health First Aid training and one hour of suicide prevention for every one of our 650 employees, while also continuing to invest in structural enhancements designed to keep everyone  safe from harm.