Destiny by Design: The NJSBA and BHPSNJ’s “3-D” Process of Transforming Community Input into Cringe Edu-Slop

Editorial

The Berkeley Heights Public School District’s Destiny by Design (God, that makes me laugh every time I read it) strategic planning notes outline goals and objectives intended to guide the district over the next five years.

While the documents evidence strong community participation and discussion, a review of the meeting outcomes from Sessions One through Three shows a fundamental gap between the feedback collected and the framework that ultimately emerged.

Session One outcomes document reflects a wide range of concerns raised by families and residents including
-Academic rigor
-Student achievement in math, science and ELA
-Instructional consistency
-Postsecondary Preparedness
-Clarity on expectations and accountability.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone because it is the same thing the community says every time a survey goes out. And the District twists it EVERY SINGLE TIME. Remember how Security was presented as the most important thing ever during the last budget meeting when that’s really not what the survey results said (convenient during the year the District overspent on that line by 100k)? Or how about all the items the community prioritized landing in Question 2 of the referendum and dependent on items that weren’t prioritized or connected to student needs?

Session Two continued this theme with participants asked to identify strengths, challenges and priorities across goal areas.

By Session Three the process shifted from identifying needs to drafting high-level goal statements and objectives which landed on three broad goal areas with multiple objectives under each with no method for ranking, weighting or prioritizing the objectives based on earlier feedback.

Nowhere in the Session Three notes is there evidence of a prioritization process. The materials do not show that objectives were evaluated against survey results, attendance levels, frequency of concern or alignment with the most commonly cited issues from prior sessions. There is no indication that participants were asked to determine which goals mattered most, which could wait or which should drive near-term decision making.

As a result, all of the objectives are presented as equally important- academic excellence, facilities improvements, social-emotional development, professional development and community engagement appear side by side without distinction.

The Session Three document also points out that action plans, timelines, metrics and indicators of success (you know …all the accountability measures) will be handled later by the Superintendent and administrative team (the folks these measures should be holding accountable). What about the Board and the public?

Why does the process become so narrow at one of the most critical stages?

Why is the Administration the ONLY group to have their hands on this from start to finish and leading every single component?

The entire process appears similar to other problematic initiatives – stylized and almost weird terms – like what is 3D Strategic Planning? Seriously?

And we would all love for the District to work with the ‘whole child’ but I think most in the community would agree they have been falling short on the part of the child that should be able to do Math and Science.

Can we please focus on that part of the child this time?

Of course we wouldn’t expect anything different from a process led by the NJSBA – an organization that seems intent on giving School Administrators near dictatorial powers while tying BOE Members in committees and handcuffing them with strange retreat suggestions and terrible leadership advice. This occurs all while supporting the notion that the plan not even run through the BOE’s strategic planning committee – circumventing an elected body whose role it is to represent the community that elected them.

As for public input and transparency, the NJSBA was the same group that pushed for the Scutari and Danielsen OPRA overhaul. It makes perfect sense why we would end up with a product that is full of cringe, weird edu-speak and corporate buzzwords from the 90’s that provides little to no clarity on what the District plans to accomplish, no targets for academic proficiency and no idea on who will be accountable for each goal while being completely divorced from the feedback the community provided them over the last five years and in their own highly controlled work groups.

And that’s precisely why I didn’t attend any of the sessions.

It appears clear from the final product the Administration does not plan to put a single metric related to Math or Science proficiency that will hold them accountable. There is no way to measure whether the plan succeeds or fails.

Last and perhaps most importantly – there is no hint of an empirical framework driving this process which at this point isn’t surprising as it would mean that the District would have to finally acknowledge every evidence based recommendation we have written about. An empirical framework wouldn’t have room for 400k in security theatre or teaching methods (with their own set of ridiculous labels) that encourage students to teach themselves.

This is yet another disappointment for the new Administration and more evidence that maybe all School Administrators probably attend some terrible NJSBA intensive retreat that teaches them that their main goal is to make the public and the Board believe they have influence through fake opportunities while keeping the budget growing and to avoid setting a precedent of real accountability at all costs.

Let’s see if the Board actually does something about it this time. In reality they have the ability to vote through their own Strategic Plan based on the notes, feedback they received through other surveys and avenues along with available research-will they finally show they have the spine to do it?

If the Superintendent and Administration wants to lock out and disfigure public input then the BOE can come right back and force their own plan through – after all they are the elected body.

Or will they allow a Superintendent who has not even been here a year and an outside lobbying group over-write community concerns and implement yet another plans with no accountability or clarity surrounding proficiency?

Source Documentation