By William C. Shelton

When Tony Pierantozzi became Somerville Public Schools Superintendent in July 2005, he brought the practice of preparing detailed, one-year improvement plans.  To enable effective management, the plans to identify the individuals responsible for carrying out each objective.  To ensure accountability, the objectives are measurable, quantifiable, and have completion dates.  Two examples are on the SPS‚Äôs Web site under departments, click on School Committee and then goals.

Major changes within a complex organization require multiple years to
accomplish.  Examples in Somerville schools would be creation of a
volunteer program, parental involvement initiatives, expanded foreign
language instruction, and improvements to 7th and 8th grade
instruction. 

Last Spring, School Committee Member Mark Niedergang proposed to the Long Range Planning Committee they lead a multi-year planning effort, adopting many of the principles used in Pierantozzi’s one-year-plan process.

Large organizations are often compared to supertankers.  If a captain decides to turn the ship, it will not complete the turn for another ten miles.   

An organizational members‚Äô attention is often absorbed by immediate and consuming demands. School Committee Chairwoman Roberta Bauer said, ‚ÄúWe focus on immediate needs.  But how do we envision what the schools could and should be five years from now?‚Äù

If an organizational leader identifies an imminent threat or opportunity, the effort required to communicate facts, agree on the situation, solicit support for a course of action, assign roles, and coordinate efforts is so great that it undermines a timely and effective response.

Strategy enables an organization to be responsive and focus resources otherwise consumed by these actions on effectively responding to the threat or opportunity.  When a strategy is understood throughout the organization, it informs every aspect of its activities. Strategy is like the hub of a wheel, while the spokes are the operating policies.

If the strategy is commonly understood, the existence of a threat or opportunity will not need to be communicated or argued.  Everyone will recognize it, know what they must do, and take action. Everyone can be a leader.

All organizations must make desired changes using finite resources, while overcoming inertia. The city‚Äôs fiscal constraints are well known.  Cultural inertia may be seen in something as simple as the widespread negative reaction to conducting high school graduation exercises indoors while Dilboy field was unusable.

Strategy determines how an organization can most fully achieve its goals, in light of opposing forces and with the limitations of finite resources.  Strategy is the conceptual glue that binds together the disparate activities of the organization.  A strategic plan informs what anyone in the organization will do, based on what is known, whenever a decision must be made.

The Somerville Public Schools‚Äô Long Range Planning Committee is chaired by the School Committee chairperson.  Last year‚Äôs chairperson, Charlene Harris, embraced the strategic planning concept and has worked hard to implement it.  She believes that a key way to overcome inertia is to involve as many organizational stakeholders as possible in selecting strategic goals.

So the LRPC has asked school principals for their priorities. Harris led a Jan. 8 meeting where School Council representatives identified their goals.  PTA leaders will conduct a similar process at their annual meeting March 1.   A March 8 meeting will solicit input from the public at large.

The next step will be to estimate what each goal would cost to implement.  Since the school district can only accomplish what it can pay for with money or human effort, the more difficult step will be to determine which goals to eliminate. 

Accomplishing some goals in the near term will build capacity to accomplish more difficult ones over the long term.

The aim is to select a handful of critical program initiatives, forming a strategic hub to which the Superintendent and staff can develop operational spokes, and all stakeholders can implement.

Clearly defining where an organization intends to go will give it a much better chance of getting there.  The School Committee has undertaken a strongly needed, but extremely ambitious process to accomplish this. 

Indeed, Niedergang said it is difficult to conduct such a process without utilizing the help of professional strategic planners and committing large amounts of time to working with each constituency.

On balance, however, he is very pleased that the School Committee has chosen this direction.

So am I. 

The School Committee encourages public input, which may be given through your ward‚Äôs committee member, whose phone number and email address are listed on the City of Somerville website. Just click government and then  school committee.