School board approves strategic plan

The Danville School Board approved the division’s 2021-2026 strategic plan during their June 3 meeting.

Since the beginning of the year, Danville Public Schools staff has been working to create a strategic plan for the next five years that will serve as a roadmap to success and address the division’s gaps to become a better school district.

In collaboration with the Virginia School Boards Association, the division started the process by surveying teachers, students, staff and community members, as well as holding community meetings. In reviewing the data collected, stakeholders established goals, objectives and a mission.

“Some of the most powerful community meetings we held were with the students,” Superintendent Dr. Angela Hairston said of the planning process.

Feedback allowed staff to come up with a mission statement, which is to “inspire, educate, and develop students in collaboration with families and the community, to ensure students graduate college and/or career ready.” The division’s vision is to create a school division that cultivates excellence for all.

The plan, as approved by the board, identifies five goal areas of improvement:

• Student achievement: Danville Public Schools will raise student achievement, close the achievement gap, and enable students to take ownership for their learning.

• Operations and internal processes: Danville Public Schools will ensure efficient and effective operations and processes aligned with board policy and supportive of improved working and learning conditions.

• Staff learning and growth: Danville Public Schools will recruit, hire, develop and retain highly qualified staff and provide opportunities for continued learning and professional growth.

• Stakeholder engagement and communication: Danville Public Schools will strengthen partnerships and communication with families, local businesses, community agencies and advocacy groups in order to engage families and community stakeholders to support improved academic achievement.

• Culture and climate: Danville Public Schools will foster an inclusive climate that values the safety and well-being of students, faculty, and staff and fosters an equitable environment that creates a sense of belonging.

These strategic goal areas are “big buckets” of work that shape DPS’ map for success.

“These goal areas were derived from a review of data, listening sessions, and survey data,” Hairston said. “They’re gaps we need to fill in a large area.”

Each of these goal areas has specific objectives, such as increasing the graduation rate for all students in the area of student achievement, and initiatives and action steps to achieve that objective.

For increasing the graduation rates, an example of an initiative would be for the division to develop a high school-to-work plan. An action step for this would be to develop a career pathways plan for students who will enter the workplace directly after high school graduation.

Each of the objectives also has “indicators of success,” which are measurable performance indicators to let the division know they are improving, such as the graduation rate.

Now that the plan is approved by the board, the division staff will work towards improving the five goal areas by using the Strategic Plan to guide them.

The full strategic plan can be viewed here.

To give feedback in regards to the Strategic Plan, please fill out the survey here or reach out to us on Let’s Talk via the home page of danvillepublicschools.org.

Partnership to improve student attendance and reduce the number of students placed in foster care

In order to prevent youth from entering foster care and often being placed in out of home placements, which are costly to the locality, Danville Social Services partners with Danville Public Schools to identify youth in middle & high school that have been referred to the Truancy Response Team for attendance challenges and may potentially have a Child in Need of Supervision/Services (CHINS) petition filed against them in Juvenile Court.

A Safe & Stable Families Committee was formed with community partners and developed a plan to engage local vendors to provide services to these identified youth. Several proposals were submitted for review and the committee selected one of the vendors to provide the services through Promoting Safe & Stable Families (PSSF) funding.

The vendor provides Holistic Intensive Engagement (H.I.E) with the youth and families. It involves a holistic approach that encompasses three main focuses: 1) Home Life, 2) Academic Life and 3) Social life. All participants go through an Intake Process which includes two Youth Outcomes Assessment as well as the Ansel Casey Life Skills assessment. The services are provided for a period of 30-90 days The vendor participates in Family Assessment Planning Team Meetings (FAPT meetings). The FAPT meets to identify resources and services to remove barriers to student attendance and success. There is a process to ensure that services are monitored and adjusted as needed.

Only one child that received the services entered foster care in the last school year.

Danville Social Services has enjoyed our partnership with the local vendor, Life Push & the Danville Public Schools.

We will continue to utilize funds to keep this program going due to the high success rate.

Four-day work week schedule begins this coming week

Effective June 7, DPS will begin the four-day work week schedule for the summer, which means four (4) ten-hour work days Monday through Thursday. All offices, sites, and schools, with the exception of high school summer school classes, will be closed on Fridays for each of the weeks listed below:

June 7 - 11, June 14 - 18, June 21 - 25, June 28 - July 2, July 5 holiday (closed)*, July 12 - 16.

*Due to the holiday, this week's schedule will be (4) eight-hour work days Tuesday, July 6 through Friday, July 9.