• Strategic Plan Addendum

    The 2018-2023 Strategic Plan was intended to serve as a living document to address needs in DPS and the Durham community. This addendum, adopted in January 2020, preserves the Strategic Plan's priorities, goals, and benchmarks, while lifting up—with intention—strategies affecting key student groups and communities.

    Advanced Academics (Priorities 1, 2, 3)

    • Promote higher levels of academic and socio-emotional attainment for all students by ensuring middle and high school AIG specialists have time in their weekly schedules for talent development opportunities.
    • Extend advanced learning strategies/practices through alignment of the district’s MTSS model to include advanced learners.
    • Ensure all DPS middle and high school students have equitable access to a baseline level of advanced learning opportunities.

    Career and Technical Education (Priorities 1, 2, 3)

    • Increase Career Development Coordinator positions to create an internal Work-Based Learning system to promote and support student engagement with future careers.
    • Develop and implement systems, structures and processes at the district and school level to ensure all students participate in Work-Based Learning awareness, exposure, and experience activities.
    • Develop and implement a professional learning plan for all high school staff on best-practices to support Work-Based Learning experiences.

    English as a Second Language/Limited English Proficiency (Priorities 1, 2, 3)

    • Provide sheltered programs in elementary and middle schools to increase support for newcomer students who have been in U.S. schools 0-2 years.
    • Provide professional learning to ensure staff are equipped with strategies for English Learners.
    • Provide professional learning to schools on best-practices in scheduling to meet English-learner needs.
    • Provide supplemental resources that are culturally and linguistically relevant.

    Multilingual Resource Center (Priorities 1, 2, 3)

    • Improve language access supports across schools and the district by ensuring adequate Spanish-language staffing levels.
    • Improve language access across schools and the district by hiring interpreters/translators who speak languages other than English or Spanish.
    • Improve language access supports across schools and the district by sponsoring staff who are interested in becoming interpreters/translators.
    • Increase counseling resources and trauma-informed community resources.

    Pre-Kindergarten (Priorities 1, 2, 3)

    • Provide pre-K teachers professional learning on kindergarten standards in literacy and math to strengthen pre-K preparation for kindergarten.
    • Provide pre-K teachers with professional learning and coaching on best-practices to support literacy and math development.
    • Ensure inter-rater reliability among pre-K teachers on the assessment tool to ensure validity of data.
    • Provide pre-K teachers EC school-age professional learning (FBA, BIP, data collection, strategies for children with AU, IEP development, behavior intervention strategies, ECATS, etc.).
    • Provide social-emotional learning strategies for culture and climate and trauma-informed strategies.

    Professional School Counselors (Priorities 1, 2, 3)

    • Improve the ratio of school counselors to students to align with the standards recommended by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA).
    • Increase to 80% the percentage of time school counselors spend on direct services toward academic, career and social-emotional development.
    • Employ at least one 12-month counselor at each middle and high school to ensure students are appropriately scheduled in courses that lead to on-cohort graduation.

    School Boundaries and Student Assignment (Priorities 2, 4, 5)

    • Evaluate priorities around redistricting, site-based solutions, and/or new school construction.
    • Develop capital improvement plan and strategies for K-3 class size implementation.
    • Evaluate existing DPS system of school choice, student assignment policies and school boundaries/magnet priority zones across elementary, middle and high school levels.
    • Develop integrated plan, grounded in equity, that balances programming, policies and geographic boundaries.

    Special Education (Priorities 1, 2, 3, 5)

    • Recruit and retain high-quality certified EC and EC pre-K teachers by providing incentives in hard to staff areas.
    • Implement systems, structures and processes to ensure all students with disabilities receive instruction and support aligned with research and/or evidence based practices.
    • Develop and implement a professional learning plan for district and school-based leaders to ensure consistent implementation of local, state and federal laws and policies governing programs and services for students with disabilities.
    • Develop and implement a professional learning plan for EC teachers to ensure quality and compliant IEP development, understanding and implementation of best instructional practices and progress monitoring.
    • Increase positions to create an EC/EC pre-K organizational structure designed to maximize behavioral and instructional support to schools.