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Goals, vision needed for our schools to handle kids’ needs<br>

This year, the schools in Williams have been working on the following:

• Developing a well-defined curriculum that is aligned with the Arizona standards

• Developing assessments to use throughout the school year that will allow teachers to monitor student progress on the standards throughout the school year

• Implementing Character Counts

• meeting requirements mandated by the new No Child Left Behind legislation

• Holding town hall meetings to determine needs and concerns as expressed by parents, community members and staff.

Where do we go next? We need to use our curriculum, use our assessments, support Character Counts, and monitor student progress on a regular basis. In addition, the district plans to gather the many types of data we have about our schools, our students and our community. A Williams Unified School District Advisory Committee being formed this spring will “sift” through the data and identify key areas that need to be developed or supported in a long range plan.

Sometime over the next months, the governing board, with the assistance of the District Advisory Committee, staff and the Superintendent’s Advisory Council (to be formed later this spring) will develop a vision statement for the district. A year from now, we should have goals for a long range (five-year) plan in place and be ready to begin developing our action plans to meet our goals and accomplish our vision.

For now, until a new vision statement is crafted, the district’s vision is that all students will be put in the best position to succeed academically, socially, emotionally and physically.

Why is the development of a vision and long range plan important? Our reality is that we live in a rapidly changing society. Most of us have no idea what the work force of the future will need in terms of skills and preparation. It is important for us as a community to look ahead to the future of our community, region, state, nation and world to identify what we believe to be the core values and skills that will be needed by our children to succeed in the 21st century.

As a district, we do appreciate the efforts of staff, parents and community members who have participated in the town hall meetings this year. They have helped us identify a number of areas that will need to be addressed for next year or in our long range planning.

If you have input you like to give to the district, but have been unable to attend any of the Town Hall meetings, please call or e-mail, Sue Scherz: 635-4473; sscherz@wusd2.org.


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