Yarmouth schools’ new strategic plan focuses on supporting and inspiring students and hiring and retaining top educators.
The goals outlined in “Beyond 2020” will be realized through better communication among staff and students, more professional development, and collaboration with outside organizations, according to school officials. Other benchmarks to be met include engaging more with the community and cultivating opportunities for students.
“We had completed most, if not all, of the proposed strategies in the plan from 2015: expanding world language, adding pre-kindergarten (pending budget approval this week), and expanding alternative pathways at the high school as a few examples,” Superintendent Andrew Dolloff said. “This new plan identifies areas of continued growth, such as equity of programming and community engagement that we want to work on.”
The district planned to update its strategic plan in 2020, but it was put on hold due to the pandemic.
Under the new plan, daily morning meetings or advisory groups will be held so students can discuss concerns or receive additional staff support. Educators also plan to implement a “social-emotional learning” curriculum that teaches self-awareness, self-control and interpersonal skills at all grade levels. The current curriculum will be assessed and expanded at all grade levels, Dolloff said.
To help the district hire and keep talented staff members, the district will offer more professional development opportunities, promote wellness among the faculty and staff and add peer mentoring. Hiring protocols that promote a more diverse pool of candidates will also be added.
To engage the wider community, the district hopes to collaborate with Yarmouth Community Services more frequently for family and student-friendly programming and create more opportunities for people to visit their local schools for recreation and educational resources.
Broadening the choices for students may include an updated financial literacy curriculum and more curriculum that teaches civic engagement and global awareness. More extracurricular activities may be made available as well.
For the first time, the district also has a vision statement to guide its strategic plan: “Yarmouth Schools will enrich the life of each student through meaningful learning opportunities that foster academic curiosity, career aspiration, civic engagement, and global awareness.”
The Strategic Planning Team, which was comprised of 11 members ranging from parents to school faculty, spent the last school year crafting the plan, including two rounds of community surveys, staff feedback and a community forum. The forum was sparsely attended, likely due to pandemic concerns, Dolloff said, but the surveys each garnered about 1,000 responses.
“Equity of opportunity and programming, social-emotional support for students and staff, school safety, and academic rigor” were survey respondents’ major priorities, he said.
“Community volunteers and school employees worked extremely hard on the new strategic plan, and we received a great deal of valuable feedback from the community as a whole,” School Committee Chairperson Kate Shub said.
The School Committee will vote on the strategic plan June 17, and Dolloff expects it will be unanimously approved.
“The School Committee felt the Strategic Planning Team spent a lot of time gathering input and developing a plan that meets the School Department’s needs,” he said.
Following approval, the District Leadership Team, which is comprised of central office and school-based administrators, will identify steps to be taken annually to meet the plan’s goals by end of the 2026-2027 school year. Dolloff will also make yearly reports to the School Committee, advising them of progress toward the goals and performance targets.
Some of the action strategies “could result in added costs to the district, in the form of additional staffing, most typically, but that will be determined each year as we operationalize the plan and decide which strategies to propose for implementation,” he said.
The full Strategic Plan can be found at yarmouthschools.org.
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