Futures Planning Mid-Year update

The Futures Plan continues to be the focal point for the strategic efforts of the school, and it is at this time of year when we can reflect on the many opportunities, successes and challenges it presents.

One of the key qualities of the plan is that it is constantly able to reflect our current thinking and knowledge that relates to our pathways. The plan encourages us to continue to learn and explore, to understand and know more, and to reflect on our progress. From new ideas, to identify our biases, the perennial attention that goes into the plan encourages us to be thoughtful about the future.

As shown in previous posts below, we value the feedback and ideation of our community, and one form this has taken is the Faculty Futures summit. Others include our MSA surveys, Feedback questionnaires, and many Leadership Team coffee sessions.

The Faculty Futures Summit produced a wealth of narrative about new ideas in the near and far future, and how our faculty see the Futures Pathways evolving. Hundreds of comments over seven areas of innovation were captured.

These comments were recently processed and streamlined by members of our Teaching and Learning Leadership Team, who identified salient, persuasive throughlines within this bank of feedback. This will be digested further by Leadership Team, Community Planning Team, and fed into the processes that develop and innovate the Futures Pathways.

I would like to thank all of our faculty who so meaningfully participated in the session, and for the time and energy of all those who have worked on this process.

Planning Events in September 2019

Community Planning Team 0n 6/9/19

Our multi-stakeholder Community Planning Team met for the first time this academic year. The charge for this meeting was to align ourselves as a team, embrace new and continuing members, and explore our role in the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (MSA) accreditation and self assessment. An insightful and empowered collection of parents, faculty, leadership, and students gathered ideas and evidence to support the particular MSA indicators, that let AISC know how we are performing in the areas of Strategic Planning and Foundational Documents. It was a pleasure to see multiple groups working coherently towards our goals in this area, with the team working attitude I have come to expect, and still vastly appreciate, within our AISC community. See the slide deck here, and feel free to ask any of our team members about the work of the Community Planning Team.

Faculty Futures Summit on 11/9/19

Last week the AISC faculty discussed and developed ideas related to a selection of Strategic Pathways, during a wednesday early release professional learning session. The event challenged us to escalate our thinking and innovation to the strategic level, and align ourselves with the work from our Futures Plan. Using the Futures Plan document (now on recycled paper) we identified specific pathways in which many areas of the school are involved, and in which many faculty hands do the work.

The event culminated in a further stimulus to extend and elevate our ideas to the extent that we are considering new futures planning pathways, and embracing emergent ideas about what the future of our school, and education, may look like.

Find the presentation here, and look forward to seeing the resulting data as it feeds back into our strategic pathways in the coming weeks and months of review.

2019-2020 Goals for Community Planning Team

Welcome to the Futures Planning Blog for the 2019-2020 academic year. The details below outline the purpose of the Futures Planning at AISC, the members of the Community Planning Team, and the working document for this year, The AISC Futures plan.

Purpose of Futures planning at AISC

The purpose of our futures planning process is captured in the image below, and acknowledges that no single, predictable, future exists when it comes to long term organisational change. We realise that we are authors, and actors, in the possible futures of the school, and keen observers of the futures of the society we inhabit. 

We use the Futures Planning process to 

1. To align mission with school goals
2. To engage a framework for decision-making
3. To connect present to future
4. To integrate systems parts into whole

Within this frame, we can make informed, yet flexible, planning decisions, simultaneously working towards explicit deliverables in the short term, while paying a good deal of attention to how the world is changing around us and our community.

On May 9, 2019, the Community Planning Team came together to hear the final update on the goals that the school had been working on throughout the year. They then came to consensus on the essence of the goals for the 2019-2020 school year. At the end of the session the team learned about and discussed a range of topics, from competencies to environmental responsibility.

These goals have now been reformatted into the Futures plan for 2019-2020, which it is my distinct pleasure to share with you today.

The Community Planning Team for 2019-2020 is also convened, and the list of members can be found here

To learn more about the 2018-2019 Community Planning Meeting event, please find the slide deck here. 

Planning Team Retreat and 2019-2020 Goals

As the end of the 2018-2019 school year comes to an end, the Community Planning Team takes an opportunity to hear the progress on the annual goals. At this goals update, leadership team members report on what has happened to achieve the goal.

Next the leadership team shared the 2019-2020 goals, and the Community Planning Team approved all 15 goals by consensus. Each of these goals falls under one of the 10 pathways, three year vision statements that the school is moving towards.

Here are the 2019-2020 Goals:

Pathway: Learning & Experiential Opportunities 

AISC develops programs for students to deepen their capacity to contribute with courage, confidence, creativity, and compassion to a diverse and dynamic world.

1) High School: Research and design an experiential capstone project

2) Middle School: Develop and implement program within each domain (Week Without Walls &  SEVAI).

3) Elementary School: Produce visualizations of Elementary and Early Years profiles, including vision projects.

Pathway: Learning & Innovation in the System

AISC implements innovative learning experiences incorporating the inquiry framework and transdisciplinary skills, and alternative schedules to engage the vision of the AISC learner.

4) High School: Plan coach/admin led design thinking day for grade 9/10.

5) Middle School: Implement STEAM transdisciplinary project using PBL model.

6) Elementary School: Vision inspiration projects implemented: reflection to include review and recommendations for following years.

7) Early Years: Best practice in multi-age Early Years and Kindergarten will be documented and shared.

Pathway: Learning & Vision for the Learner

As a means to live the mission, AISC integrates abilities to achieve success through the Vision for the Learner into the culture of the school.

8) All School: Socialize draft EY-12 competencies and potential implementation plans for feedback and refinement.

Pathway: Learning & Inquiry in the Curriculum

AISC integrates the inquiry framework and project-based learning into the curriculum development process.

9) All School: Identify further examples of Inquiry consistent with AISC Inquiry Framework. Show how we use inquiry.

Pathway: Learning & Wellbeing

AISC creates an integrated student wellbeing program that promotes and fosters healthy habits, self-awareness, self-management and positive relationships.

10) All School: Community members identify their role in fostering Student Wellbeing. Curriculum links to Student Wellbeing are implemented.

Pathway: Resources & Data

Develop and evolve systems and processes to facilitate the convergence of data collection and use, assuring that stakeholders have access to beneficial data to make informed decisions.

11) All School: Create and test Data Expectations for AISC Faculty that will encourage intentional uses of data to guide instruction (as measured by the sectional uses, programmatic changes, or PG&E).

Pathway: Resources & Building Spaces

AISC implements the Building Spaces 2020 Plan approved by the Board of Directors in November 2016.

12) All School: To complete Year 4 of Building Spaces 2020 plan.

Pathway: Talent & Professional Growth

AISC develops a professional growth, wellbeing, and evaluation framework that is aligned to best practices and to the vision for an AISC learner, incorporates faculty learning and development.

13) All School: Review and revise the structure and process of professional growth and evaluation (PGE) to support the new standards. 

Pathway: Community & Advancement

AISC enhances its reputation locally and globally and expands engagement and support across all stakeholder groups.

14) All School: Plan the 25th Anniversary Celebration.

Pathway: Community & Environmental Sustainability

AISC enlists the participation of all stakeholder groups to incorporate environmentally sustainable policies, practices, and programming in alignment with our mission and core values.

15) All School: Design and draft a platform that publicly showcases AISC’s Framework, relevant initiatives, and works in progress.

Please see the Resources section on the right for further materials for the Futures Plan.