Strategic planning is the process of defining an organization’s direction and making decisions on allocating resources to pursue its objectives. It involves setting long-term goals and determining actions needed to achieve these goals.

Strategic planning helps organizations focus on their priorities, improve efficiency, and ensure that all stakeholders are working toward common goals. It also prepares organizations for future challenges and opportunities.

• Conducting a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)

• Defining goals and objectives

• Developing strategies to achieve the objectives

• Setting the vision and mission

• Implementation of the plan

• Monitoring and evaluation of progress

The Summit Board of Education approved TMI Education in September 2024 to facilitate the strategic planning process by overseeing data collection and organization, survey design, and consultations between each session. There is a core planning team established early on in the process, which includes members of district administration, principals, supervisors, teachers, parents, and community members. Both internal and external stakeholders have opportunities to participate in the process by attending planning sessions and/or completing surveys.

The core team involves about 28 stakeholders who meet 5-6 times throughout the planning process. The Madison Institute recommends representatives of the district community to serve on the core team to ensure different stakeholder groups are represented, i.e. district administrators, supervisors, elementary principal, secondary principal, elementary teacher and parent, middle school teacher and parent, high school teacher and parent, board members, student, etc. The core team meets about once a month to review feedback from the general planning session, surveys, focus groups, and district data sets to formulate a new district mission, vision, and core values. In addition, the core team will draft 3-5 goals and establish annual benchmarks for each goal.

After the Board of Education approved TMI Education to facilitate the strategic planning process, the district began organizing the core planning team, as well as the finalizing the date of the first planning session in October 2024. Multiple planning sessions will be held throughout the fall and into 2025. The estimated completion of the planning process and presentation of the action plan for strategic planning is the spring/summer of 2025. Depending on the goals developed in the process, the strategic plan could either be 3 or 5 years long.