Santa Clara Unified School District Vision 2035

Welcome to the Vision 2035 final feedback site! Please read through the site, and use the feedback forms to share your comments.

In the fall 2019, the Board of Trustees and the Superintendent of Santa Clara Unified School District launched a community-wide collaborative process to develop the long-term vision for public education in Santa Clara Unified.

Looking ahead to 2035, this vision articulates the aspirations for that graduating class, and what will increasingly be true for each of our graduating classes from 2021 onwards. The elements of this vision were developed through the iterative, collaborative work of a Guiding Coalition — a group of ninety people from across Santa Clara Unified, picked for the diverse communities and viewpoints they represent — and amplified by more than fifty-four community meetings and two community surveys (see The Roadmap for more detail). The work included the exploration of future trends likely to impact education; learning journeys to schools and organizations that are already engaged in ideas Santa Clara Unified School District might be interested in adopting; and design exercises that considered the needs of students, educators, families and community members.

Altogether this process engaged thousands of stakeholders, including students, families, district staff, parents, and civic, business, community and philanthropic leaders.

All the data from these meetings were analyzed and synthesized, and through a series of draft ideas, additional inputs, comments and feedback were iterated upon to develop these near-final vision elements. This is the final round of feedback before the vision elements are brought to the Board of Trustees for final adoption.

This roadmap depicts the timeline and sequence of community engagement activities from the fall of 2019, through to the finalization of the Vision, and the accompanying Strategic Plan. These activities included a Student Summit, three Guiding Coalition sessions, many city-wide and targeted community engagement sessions, two community-wide surveys, Learning Journeys, and two Board of Trustees work sessions. All community wide sessions and surveys were accessible in English and Spanish.

What is a Vision?

A vision is a bold leap into the future that paints a vivid and aspirational picture of the world we want to create. It identifies a destination — a “north star” — that inspires and aligns collective action, shapes strategies, and drives growth. The vision for Santa Clara Unified School District is focused on what we want to be true for our graduates. This is a journey of continued creativity, learning, and improvement, and the boldness of a vision can quicken our progress with inspired actions and collaborations.

A vision helps us to step outside the constraints of the present and reimagine what is possible. It liberates our imaginations to think differently about our path forward. A vision is not a strategy. While the vision identifies the What and the Why, the strategy that follows on from the vision defines the How. Before we decide how we want to move forward we need to know where we are going.

Santa Clara Unified School District sits in the heart of Silicon Valley, an area known world-wide for innovation in science and technology. Our community wants to ensure that their school district reflects that spirit of world-leading innovation, while also attending to the social-emotional needs of students and adults. In a world in which change is a constant, and young people are competing globally for jobs and for college places, the pressures on students, families, and educators are increasingly intense. The answer, for SCUSD, is not to simply do more of the same, and to pile on the pressure, but to “work smarter.” This vision is a reflection of that spirit. High quality academics are here, and so too are the qualities that support growth, resilience, and adaptivity, that build confidence, and that foster the abilities to work well with others.

The critical role of a school system is to prepare its students to thrive in life and career. Yet the work of preparing our young people for the future is not ours alone. This vision for our students will only succeed if we work together as a city and as a community. This vision is an audacious call-to-action to support the students of Santa Clara Unified School District.

This vision comprises four main pieces: Graduate Portrait; an Adult Portrait; a System Portrait; and a set of Core Values. If we want certain things to be true for Santa Clara Unified School District graduates, the adults who support them will also need to emphasize and model a certain set of knowledge, skills, mindsets and dispositions. And if we want graduates to attain the portrait attributes, and adults to be supported to develop and emphasize these attributes, the whole school district system needs to transform in certain ways to ensure that these goals and aspirations will be met successfully.

Graduate Portrait

The Graduate Portrait is focused on the outcomes for students — what they will know, be, and be able to do by the time they graduate high school.

Adult Portrait

The Adult Portrait is focused on “ways of being” that will enable the adults working in the school district to promote each student’s development and attainment of the Graduate Portrait, and also be part of the school system’s evolution to support students through the System Portrait.

System Portrait

The System Portrait is focused on creating the conditions that will enable Santa Clara Unified School District students and adults to thrive and grow.

Core Values

The Core Values express the ethical principles that guide the school district’s actions in making the vision real. The vision is written in the present tense, as if it had already come about, in order to give us a sense of what the future it describes might feel like.