We’ve made critical choices to balance the priorities set forth in Year 1 of our strategic plan with the realities of creating a new virtual instructional program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we stacked our goals for our students and teachers for the 2020-21 school year against our strategic plan Year 1 priorities, and our finite resources (i.e. time, money, capacity) we honed in on these Big Goals for SY2020-21.  

• Exploring How We Maximize Our PK-12 Superpower (Academics)
  • Instructional Vision: This summer, we launched eight cross-campus working groups in key content areas to identify opportunities and make recommendations on how to best align our students’ instructional experience and make shifts to our special education and English Learner programming. To date, we’ve shared a draft of the revised Instructional Vision with our school leaders (before Winter Break) and will continue to get input from our community through Spring 2021. 

• Graduate Profile: Our graduate profile is our north star for the skills, knowledge, and habits we want our graduates to possess as community members, learners, and leaders. This fall we started the foundational work to create a map of Pre-K-12 staff and student “look-fors” that cultivate student growth toward fulfilling the graduate profile. Our goal is to launch a pilot graduate profile measurement system with seniors this spring in an Action Civics pilot. 

• ED Tech Strategy: This summer we transitioned to a 1:1 model to ensure that every student had the technology necessary to meaningfully engage in our virtual learning program. We’ve made significant investments in equipment and software and learned a lot about what is possible in a virtual world. Our charge for this year is to conduct an audit of our current technology (our devices and our software programs) and identify which elements of our virtual instructional program should become a staple of our academic program. 

• Student Culture, Signature Experiences, and Student Life: We know that our instructional program is just one facet of our students’ Pre-K-12 experience at E.L. Haynes, and our goal this year is to better understand our current student experience and our current offerings at every grade level from student culture to signature experiences to student life. 

• Creating a Great, Sustainable, and Inclusive Place to Work (Talent and Organizational Development)
  • Recruitment Season is Underway: We’ve made shifts to how we recruit and hire new talent to the E.L. Haynes community to center equity in the decisions we make about who will join our team. 

Launched a search for the first E.L. Haynes Staff Trustee. In January, we announced that the E.L. Haynes Board of Trustees would open one of their 15 seats to a current instructional team member. The application process is currently open to all E.L. Haynes instructional staff and the Trustees plan to identify the staff trustee later this Spring.