This is a significant opportunity for BTCS, our students, our community, and our employees to contribute to the well being and success of our students. Effective school leaders know that even the best schools can be better. That is why we must constantly examine our school system, identify student needs, and implement school improvement strategies that ensure that our students have a safe and supportive school climate conducive to teaching and learning.

The strategic planning will occur in several phases. In January 2010, a cross section of volunteers from business and community, as well as school administration, support staff, teachers, parents, and students met to develop the mission, vision, beliefs, objectives, and strategies.

Bristol Tennessee City Schools has a draft of a new motto and other major components of a new strategic plan as a result of a three-day planning session at Bristol Motor Speedway.

"The outcomes of strategic planning are obviously important in regard to the future of the school system.  Until our planning session, however, I didn't realize the power of the actual process," said Director of Schools Gary Lilly.  "Having an array of people with various perspectives all working together to define and distill the district's mission and goals was an awesome experience," he added.

Members of the school community were given the challenge by Dr. Lilly to create a five-year vision for the school system. The first session began Thursday evening, January 21, with a welcome by Dr. Lilly followed by an overview of the process by Lynn Gibson, external facilitator.

The planning team was composed of 26 participants who were a cross section of the Bristol community: teachers, parents, community members, students, educational assistants, and administrators.

During the next few days, this planning team worked together to develop belief statements, parameters, a mission, and motto. They also conducted an internal and external analysis and evaluated critical issues before writing objectives and strategies.

Board of Education member Nelson Pyle said, "The strategic planning process allowed teachers, administrators, parents, businesses, and the community to collectively define a direction for education in Bristol Tennessee City Schools.  The process was grueling and thought provoking as we analyzed our thoughts and chose a path that will provide all of our students the greatest opportunity for success.  I believe our mission says it very well, ‘To inspire academic excellence in a challenging, engaging, learning environment that graduates responsible citizens prepared for success in our global community.' I am pleased to be a part of the process that moved the system from good to great."

Four strategies were devised that will now be turned over to action teams for development into action plans. These strategies are:

1. We will provide facilities that are safe, secure, and state of the art.

2. We will require all individuals to meet or exceed rigorous expectations and standards.

3. We will develop, align, and allocate resources to meet the needs of our students.

4. We will continually improve community involvement and confidence in our school district.

"The planning session was very productive," said Board of Education Chair Gwen Ellis. "It allowed all participants to share ideas on what they feel is very important to our students and our community as a whole. The open and honest dialog showed that we have many different viewpoints, but we are all passionate about education and committed to achieving excellence."

During the next phase, action teams, also representative of our school system community, will be formed to develop the strategies. Once these action plans are developed, members of the action teams will present their plans to the planning team who will either accept them or send them back for revision. The next step will then be approval by the Board of Education.

The resulting action plans will enable our school system to move from where we are to where we want to be. We anticipate that the action team plans will be ready by June 2010, with implementation of the plan beginning in the 2010-2011 school year.

Annual progress reports will ensure that we maintain our commitment to the strategic plan by providing a means for participants to review the process, refresh the plan, and develop next steps.

For more information, please contact Jared Day (423) 652-9574 (dayj@btcs.org) or Doris Peters at (423) 652-9402 (petersd@btcs.org).