Our Strategic Plan

We conduct focus groups, user groups and input teams throughout the year on various topics to gather input and insight from parents, community members, and staff. These sessions focus input on a targeted topic from a small group of people, providing the opportunity to probe more deeply about user experiences, gather ideas, and gain insight about potential innovations. These are usually one-time opportunities that provide participants the opportunity to engage in what we hope are lively and interesting conversations about timely, important topics, without making a long-term commitment.

Community conversations allow a large number of people to participate in providing input on a specific topic often related to the District Operational Plan. Conversations are organized in a variety of formats to provide each participant the opportunity to share thoughts and ideas.

We gather insight and feedback informally through intentional and focused rounding conversations. These are often brief interactions at other events where we can quickly collect insight to inform future work and projects.

Innovative and personalized learning is a strategic initiative in Spring Lake Park Schools and consists of four core components: competency-based learning, learner profiles, personal learner maps, and flexible learning environments. The interaction of these core components allows for innovative approaches to meet student needs. This strategy will use time, space, curricular resources, the grouping of adults, and the grouping of students flexibly to support differentiated instruction and targeted intervention, leading to higher levels of student engagement, deeper learning and increased graduation rates.

By doing this, the strategy will provide multiple ways for students to get the support that is needed for them to achieve our academic and career and life competencies to be prepared for the next class, grade level, career, or college.

• The continuum of supports and interventions at Spring Lake Park High School will expand to provide additional options for students to engage with their core courses in ways that align to their strengths, interests, and needs, and align the experience and expertise of teachers to the needs of students.
• Students will be matched to the supports offered through our continuum of supports and interventions based on root cause analysis of their needs.
• Student progress on course competencies will be tracked, and targeted learner maps will show course competencies that have yet to be achieved with specific plans toward achieving them.

This strategy will include shared dual enrollment with Mounds View Public Schools and Centennial Public Schools in identified college-credit bearing courses and identified Career and College Pathways courses. This cross-district partnership provides an additional opportunity to physically bring students together for semester or year-long courses.

Cross-district partnership courses within this strategy have expanded over the past three years and will continue to expand. For example, Spring Lake Park High School courses open to the cross-district partnership includes courses within our Health and Human Services Pathway (Opportunities in Emergency Care, Teacher Education, Health & Sport Performance), and our Technology, Engineering, and Design Pathway (Construction Trades). Examples of courses at Irondale High School and Centennial High School open to the cross-district partnership include Welding, Chemistry of Foods, and General Metals.

This strategy will also increase access to college-credit bearing courses (including AP courses, embedded college courses, and articulated college courses) for student groups not enrolling in these courses at the same rate as their peers and provide additional opportunities for students to enroll in career and technical education pathways courses within Spring Lake Park Schools. This will happen through:

• Targeted outreach and ongoing support to SLP students and their families through our counselors for personalized learning to increase access to embedded college, AP, and Pathways courses
• AVID elective courses to support students in rigorous coursework

Finally, this strategy also provides opportunities for students to explore and gain experience in teaching as part of a larger “grow-your-own” initiative by offering courses specific to teacher education and child development within our Health and Human Services pathway. Our counselors for personalized learning will provide targeted outreach and ongoing support for students considering a career in education. This results in our elementary and middle school Spring Lake Park students to gain access to more diverse teacher aides in their classrooms, and increases the number of high school students who pursue teacher education programs in college and return to teach in Spring Lake Park.

Our student and family advocates work directly with students, families, and teachers to help build positive relationships between and among all of these groups to create the conditions for an inviting school and district learning environment. Student and family advocates:

• Lead family engagement initiatives that provide resources and learning opportunities for families, and help facilitate communication between school staff and families from a range of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Support learning for all staff to increase their understanding of their own culture, and the impact it has on their work and interactions with each other, students, and families.
• Support implementation of student and staff affiliation groups to ensure students and staff feel valued, inspired, and have a sense of belonging.