The Allegan Area Educational Service Agency (AAESA) is launching a new initiative to guide the district through a three-to-five-year year strategic plan.

The purpose of this initiative is to help develop new goals and strategies for providing quality services and supports for local schools, families and communities.

Stakeholder feedback is an important part of the planning process. Community members, parents, students, local district leaders, staff members, and other regional stakeholders will have the opportunity to provide input on AAESA’s strengths, suggested areas for improvement, barriers for implementation, and their vision for the future of the agency.

AAESA Board of Education President Larry Collier said, “Using data and stakeholder input is essential to decision making when working collaboratively with local schools, agencies, and institutions to provide educational opportunities for all residents to achieve their potential.”

Stakeholder input, along with essential agency and regional school district data, provides the basis for the agency to choose approximately five priority goals to be implemented over the next three to five years.

The benefits of the strategic planning process include:

• It provides integrated, important input from local districts served by the agency as well as input from communities, parents, students, and staff

• It presents a succinct and graphic picture of the agency’s current status
• It sets focused strategic goals that identify target areas to improve supports and services to support education

• It clearly delineates the role of the Board of Education, the superintendent and staff, and local school districts in strategic planning
• It uses data to set goals and make important decisions
• It helps identify areas to allocate increasingly scarce resources
• It aligns Board priorities with school improvement processes

AAESA Superintendent William Brown said, “This process allows us to thoughtfully plan the most effective and efficient way to provide necessary supports and services for the schools we serve in a collaborative way, thus supporting their missions to provide excellent educational opportunities for all students.”

Rick Diebold, Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB), will work with the agency for the next three months to complete the strategic plan. “The Allegan Area Educational Service Agency and MASB have worked together to design a customized process that ensures broad stakeholder involvement and will result in an effective strategic plan implementation,” said Diebold.