explain and discuss strategic planning process in the educational system

Ensure your strategic plan succeeds with your educational partners’ input

September 29, 2023

Sarah Mathias

Strategic planning in education – 3 keys to success.

Effective strategic planning is critical for creating positive change in your district. Among the many benefits, strategic plans align educational partners with a shared vision, mission, and values; promote productive decision-making; and help students reach their full potential.

While having a plan in place will usually improve results, strategic planning can present challenges—resulting in endless meetings, countless goal and tactic revisions, and plans that are never fully realized.

In this post, we explore strategic planning in education, touch on some K-12 planning tips, and share three best practices for making strategic planning successful in your school district. With your community’s insights and the right tools, you can win at strategic planning. Here’s how.

In this Article

• What is Strategic Planning in Education?

Strategic planning tips for K12

See thoughtexchange in action — watch the product tour, what is strategic planning in education.

Strategic planning is the process of setting goals, deciding on actions to achieve those goals, and mobilizing the resources needed to take those actions. A strategic plan describes how goals will be achieved using available resources.

While the concept initially stemmed from business practices due to people moving from the private sector into educational leadership positions, many strategic planning tools and paradigms have been adapted to focus on engagement and consensus.

This is because effective strategic planning requires community support at the school district level, both functionally and legislatively. School districts of all sizes use strategic planning to improve student outcomes and respond to changing demographics while staying within the given funding box.

In top-performing schools, leaders have proactively shifted their strategic planning process to include their educational partners. They know that their strategic plans are more likely to succeed with community support and the insights that come with community engagement.

Strategic planning is key to setting students up for success in K-12 and beyond. A solid strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission, and values, increasing engagement while providing a framework to ensure students’ needs are met so they can reach their full potential.

Your strategic plan will benefit from your district’s input. Here are a few effective ways to engage your district in K-12 strategic planning.

Tap into your educational partners’ wisdom

Your educational partners have valuable insights. Consult teachers, staff, students , parents, and community members throughout the planning process, so your strategy aligns with their perspectives.

Whether you’re setting strategy at the district, school, or department level, consulting diverse participants will uncover unbiased insights, enhance trust and buy-in, and ensure greater success with new strategic directions.

Using ThoughtExchange , leaders can scale their engagement to efficiently and effectively include their community in their district strategic plans.

Use climate surveys

Completed by all students, parents/guardians, and staff, school climate surveys allow leaders to collect participants’ perceptions about issues like school safety, bullying, and mental health and well-being, as well as the general school environment.

ThoughtExchange Surveys get you both nuanced qualitative and robust quantitative data with instant in-depth analysis, ensuring your district understands all angles of school climate. Run surveys independently or combine them with Exchanges for faster, more accurate results.

• Collect benchmark comparisons while tracking and measuring improvements over time
• Gather quality quantitative data for reporting to state agencies or funders
• Identify outliers and trends across demographic groups

Put in some face time with town halls, meetings, or listening tours

In-person gatherings like town halls, meetings, and listening tours are effective ways to understand your educational partners’ wants and needs to ensure they line up with your strategic priorities.

When managed effectively, they give staff and other educational partners the chance to closely interact. In-person gatherings can build trust and morale, promote transparency, and help create a sense of purpose.

Leverage community engagement platforms

Community engagement software lets you streamline your community engagement initiatives. It allows education leaders to gather feedback and get tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people on the same page in just days. It also facilitates candid, collaborative community conversations that help districts realize their goals.

A comprehensive community engagement platform like ThoughtExchange allows you to integrate your strategy with your community and take decisive, supported action in less time. It provides planning, scheduling, and analysis tools to help you quickly set strategy and monitor execution.

3 keys to strategic planning success

1. get everyone on the same page.

Make sure your educational partners are on the same page by allowing them to contribute to and shape your strategy from the start. Lack of alignment about what strategy involves can hinder even the best plans. So the first step in creating a successful strategic plan is getting everyone involved to provide their insights and opinions.

Letting your people know you’re listening and that their insights affect decisions, builds trust and buy-in. Your community will be much more likely to support—not sabotage—a strategy or decision.

2. Be a collaborative leader

According to ThinkStrategic , creating a school strategic plan should always be a collaborative process. Avoiding a top-down approach and getting input from educational partners will help minimize blind spots and unlock collective intelligence. It will also ensure everyone is committed to the plan. Get all community members involved in how to make the most of the school’s possibilities.

Commit to becoming a collaborative leader and put a plan in place to ensure you can achieve that goal. That may include implementing technology that can support scaled, real-time discussion safely and inclusively for students, teachers, and other educational partners.

3. Get a holistic view of your district

Getting a holistic view of your educational partners’ wants and needs helps you build more inclusive, supported strategic plans.

Depend on a platform that meets all your engagement needs in one place—from surveys to Exchanges—and allows you to consult more people in an inclusive, anti-biased environment. You’ll reduce the time and resources spent on town halls and meetings, and reach your district’s goals more efficiently and effectively.

Engagement and survey software has been proven to contribute to more effective strategic planning in education. It empowers leaders to run and scale unbiased engagement initiatives where they can learn what the people who matter really think— explore ThoughtExchange success stories to learn more .

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A Systematic Review on Educational Strategic Management

• Cari Edward C. Beñalet
• Manuel E. Paquiao Jr.
• Rosalie C. Baldezamo
• Ruel S. Vicente
• Jarah I. Reomero
• Marilou D. Junsay
• Nov 24, 2023
• strategic management

*Cari Edward C. Beñalet, Manuel E. Paquiao Jr., Rosalie C. Baldezamo, Ruel S. Vicente, Jarah I. Reomero, Marilou D. Junsay

Davao del Norte State College, New Visayas, Panabo City, Davao del Norte, Philippines

*Corresponding Author

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2023.701177

Received: 11 October 2023; Revised: 19 October 2023; Accepted: 23 October 2023; Published: 24 November 2023

This systematic review delves into the extant literature on educational strategic management, employing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework. A selection of research articles from Google Scholar, published between 2018 and 2022 and written in English, served as the primary data source. This review delineates the demographic characteristics of the existing work on educational strategic management, focusing on the geographical distribution, research methodologies, and participant numbers. Additionally, it synthesizes vital aspects of educational strategic management and consolidates recommendations found in the literature. Analysis of the literature’s demographics reveals a notable paucity of studies emanating from Asian and African countries, underscoring the need for a broader international perspective. Thematic analysis of eight articles spanning five countries identifies four central themes concerning the features of educational strategic management: optimized organizational structures, dynamic managerial capabilities, sustained pursuit of long-term objectives, and responsive feedback mechanisms. Furthermore, the review distills recommendations from various sources into four fundamental elements of strategic management: environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control. This comprehensive analysis provides valuable insights for school leaders seeking to enhance their educational institutions. It also underscores the potential for future research endeavors to explore diverse dimensions of educational strategic management, such as challenges and coping strategies.

Keywords : Education, strategic management, systematic review

INTRODUCTION  

In the last decade, educational systems worldwide have embarked on a profound transformation journey. This transition marks a shift from entrenched traditions of educational management rooted in the past to a forward-looking model anchored in strategic direction. The central objective of education under this new paradigm is to advance and sustain educational excellence. Notably, this era of change has seen a pronounced emphasis on reforms dedicated to enhancing educational institutions, pedagogical practices, and the overarching educational system (Latorre-Medina & Blanco-Encomienda, 2018).

Strategic management, adeptly employing an organization’s resources to fulfill its objectives, has been at the heart of this educational evolution. Prior studies have defined strategic management as the art of formulating goals, strategies, and objectives to enhance an organization’s or a company’s competitiveness. It predominantly revolves around efficiently utilizing human capital and material resources to achieve predefined objectives (Sabattin et al., 2020).

A burgeoning body of literature underscores the pivotal role of strategic management and planning as the foundation for success in the intricate landscape of education. Within this context, the human resources within educational institutions emerge as the linchpin of strategic management, essential for optimizing performance and fostering excellence in schools.

Explorations into the factors influencing strategic management in education reveal a compelling narrative. The success of educational institutions and centers is intrinsically linked to the judicious application of strategic management across diverse domains. A telling example lies in the strategic management practices employed by Hershey National Track Company, as illustrated by Darden et al. (1989), which illuminate how strategic decision-making at the executive level can facilitate success even in fiercely competitive environments (Carvalho et al., 2021).

Strategic management, furthermore, has emerged as a force for organizational effectiveness in various sectors. Within the realm of education, strategic planning has evolved from its more assertive origins, rooted in business practices. This evolution has been catalyzed by the influx of professionals from the private sector taking on leadership roles in educational institutions. These adaptations now emphasize collaboration and consensus, as exemplified by Kose and Kose (2019), who highlight key components of educational strategic management, including structured organizational frameworks, managerial proficiency, goal alignment, and constructive feedback mechanisms.

Nevertheless, the landscape of educational strategic management has its challenges. A comprehensive analysis reveals various issues, including leadership, training, resource allocation, and educational policy frameworks, which underscore the multifaceted nature of this domain (Nyagah, 2015). The significance of conducting a systematic review to pinpoint a research gap and have also outlined a systematic review protocol for this specific domain and its associated research (Price, 2017).

A systematic literature review has been undertaken to address these challenges and bridge theoretical gaps. This review is a comprehensive compilation of existing research on educational strategic management, offering invaluable insights and direction for all stakeholders within the educational sphere. As this transformation unfolds, schools need clear and strategic direction to avoid wandering, where objectives shift frequently, and school leaders may need clarification about the purpose of their work as educational managers. Historically, schools have leaned more toward operational planning, emphasizing efficiency and effectiveness (Bush & Coleman, 2018).

Research Questions

The study tends to conduct a systematic review analysis of the existing literature about educational strategic management. It aims to answer the following research questions:

• What demographic data is in the existing literature on educational strategic management regarding country, research design, and the number of participants?
• What are the features of educational strategic management?
• What suggestions for further research can be identified by exploring the current literature in educational strategic management based on the elements of strategic management?

METHODOLOGY

This study used a systematic review analysis design. A key aspect of systematic analysis is gathering and evaluating all papers on a topic and design. Based on their quality, systematic reviews do statistical meta-analyses of study outcomes (Ahn & Kang, 2018). It is also the primary concern of Ranganathan and Aggarwal (2020) that a systematic review is a statistical approach for statistically combining the results of several research studies to produce a pooled estimate of treatment impact, which is usually included in systematic reviews. Therefore, systematic reviews are the most substantial evidence (Chandler et al., 2019). The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) reporting checklist was used to conduct this systematic review, as shown in Figure 2. (PRISMA; Liberati et al., 2009). The process has four stages: identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion. For this investigation, a thorough literature search was done to discover articles that included systematic reviews.

Adopted from: Liberati A, Altman DG, Tetzlaff J, Mulrow C, Gøtzsche PC, et al. (2009) The PRISMA Statement for Reporting Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Studies That Evaluate Health Care Interventions: Explanation and Elaboration. PLOS Medicine 6(7): e1000100. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000100

 Figure 1: Information flow between the various stages of a systematic review

Searching, Screening, and Data Extraction

The primary database-search tool used by the study to find relevant literature that may be included in it was Google Scholar. Google Scholar was primarily chosen because it includes an advanced search tool that allows users to specify their preferred functional words, the portion of the paper in which they were used, and the year of publication. Additionally, it offers statistics depending on inclusion and exclusion standards, such as full-text versions.

To find relevant reviews, we launched Google Scholar, clicked the “advance search” option, and set the inclusion criteria to “in the title of the article” and the use of keywords like “educational strategic management” were applied in the search and browsing of valid literature, that generated two hundred and fifty-eight (258) results. We then set the publication year between 2018 and 2022, which was narrowed to ninety-two (92).

Furthermore, there were several duplicates, as we saw. To quickly eliminate the ten duplicates, we exported the articles using Microsoft Excel and sorted them from A to Z. As a result, eighty-two (82) items were still available. These were examined based on language, with only articles written in English included, leading to the identification of seventy-one (71) sources and the exclusion of 55 articles. Because the seven eliminated publications could not be accessed, the researchers only kept sixteen (16) sources from these 29 journals. The researchers then reduced the number of papers to nine (9), excluding seven that needed to be published in a journal format. To ensure that every paper the researchers review is in qualitative format, we removed one using quantitative methods, which left eight (8) qualified articles to be included.

Moreover, we screened the articles by concentrating on the key elements of educational strategic management. The inclusion and exclusion standards for this review are shown in Table 1, which shows the eligibility criteria that determine which articles were included and excluded.

Table 1 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria of the Systematic Review

Search Strategy

The documentation of the analysis process and the establishment of inclusion criteria in this research were diligently carried out following established guidelines.

We used Google Scholar to look for pertinent works. To quickly compile the most recent and pertinent articles, we used the “advance search” option and selected inclusion criteria such as “in the title of the article” and the year between 2020 and 2022. To systematically include relevant works, we carefully filtered the searched articles by looking at the titles, reading the abstracts, and even downloading the whole texts for in-depth analysis. We searched various sources during the data collection procedure to adequately support

the current reviews. All references were properly cited for easier searching.

  Data Extraction Procedures

For convenience in reference, navigation, and citation, this systematic review has extracted the names of the authors, the year of publication, the country, the study design, participant characteristics, the study aims, the results and discussion, the conclusion, the recommendations, and the implications for strategic planning in education. The reviewed studies for strategic planning in education are included in Table 2. All of them were taken from Google Scholar.

Table 2  Reviewed Studies on strategic planning

Data Analysis

In the early part, with the final listing of the literature, simple tabulations of demographic data were made using Microsoft Excel regarding the study year, nation, and subject area. A comparison of the various literature was considered to overcome the outdated professional development skills in public schools. The analyzed data were also presented in a graphical format to provide a general image of the complete data set.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The eight reviewed articles in this paper came from eight countries. These were appropriately distributed according to the following:  India (1), Malaysia (2), Indonesia (3), Egypt (1), and Ghana (1). Five studies (63%) concentrated on basic education, while two studies (25%) focused on higher education. On the other hand, only one study (13%) was not identified (see Table 3).

Table 3   Distribution of the Reviewed Studies by Country and by Educational Level

The results of the framework’s sections are shown in the next section. The first section focuses on the demographic data in the existing literature on educational strategic management regarding the country, research design, and the number of participants. The second section identifies features of educational strategic management. The third part discusses the suggestions for further research that can be identified by exploring the current literature on educational strategic management based on the elements of strategic management.

Demographic Data on the Existing Literature on Educational Strategic Management

Table 4 summarizes the full-text publications and journals reviewed about educational strategic management and the nation in which the study was done, research methodologies, participant numbers, and study objectives. As seen in the table, India (1), Malaysia (2), Indonesia (3), Egypt (1), and Ghana (1) were the countries from which the studies were from. The quantity of qualitative and quantitative research designs used throughout all literature about educational strategic management may have been roughly balanced. According to the number of participants, the type of study and research design used have an impact.

The summary of the research emphasis for all relevant literature is shown in the last row following the review analysis. Additionally, the readers were informed of the study’s purpose(s) and expected that the posed research questions would be addressed.

Table 4  Demographics of the Various Literature

Features of Educational Strategic Management

Based on a thorough review of the ten (10) articles, four (4) emerging themes on the features of educational strategic management: Efficient Organizational Structure, Dynamic Management Skill, Maintaining Long Term Objectives, and Emerging Feedback, as shown in Table 5.

Table 5 Emerging Themes on the Features of Educational Strategic Management

Efficient Organizational Structure

In the efficient organizational structure in educational strategic management, the following characteristics, as shown above, are education innovation strategic management practices, awareness, clarity, enthusiasm, and commitment.

Education Innovation Strategic Management Practices . The execution methods are as follows in educational institution innovations. Personalized educational settings development (Dias, 2018). This concept aids the person’s abilities for thought and analysis, growth of their additional intelligence, and development of a dependable citizen. Additionally, eight distinct intelligence formations are necessary for success in many of today’s strategic management (Ashittey, 2022).

Furthermore, Yaakob et al. (2019) emphasize opportunities for learning through problems: Examine what you already know and learn more. You must acquire and improve your people skills to improve team performance by enhancing your communication abilities, developing more adaptability in information processing and satisfying obligations, using evidence to support claims, and practicing the abilities you will need after your education.

Awareness, Clarity, Enthusiasm, and Commitment. 

Plans provide for early commitment to a course of all corporate strategic activities that will benefit from being coordinated and implemented convincingly. Plans are a further programming tool (Swain & Pradhan, 2020). Commitment to the factors that, at all costs, will steer the organization in the right direction and the goals for the system (Bahri, 2020).

Dynamic Management Skill

Based on the comprehensive review, dynamic management skill is characterized by fundamental transformation, overcoming resistance to change, and developing skills and change competencies.

Fundamental Transformation . Various definitions come to mind when transformation work is considered. Swain and Pradhan (2020) stated that a transformation is a significant alteration in shape or appearance. It is a structural method of implementing a strategy or vision to transfer people, teams, and organizations from one state to another desired state in the future. Transformation is a process of change in which organizational culture shifts in favor of a particular type of culture that institutionalizes such social processes (Ramdhan,2019). Making long-term and short-term goals, a future perspective, a mission, and meaningful outcomes are all components of strategic management; as a result, the start of an effective shift in transformation can be strategic (Bahri, 2020).

Overcoming Resistance to Change and Developing Skills and Change Competencies . Change is a necessary process that must happen whether it is acknowledged because it is dynamic. Management is frequently viewed as a technique to control the company effectively and efficiently until the point of execution and evaluation, ensuring its goals and objectives are met (Sabaruddin et al., 2022). The configuration form is revealed according to the scope, competition results, targets, and resource allocation (Syarifudin et al., 2022). Additionally, Dias (2018) stated that people in the organization would be led and able to function at their best if strategic management could maintain long-term objectives and use strategic management techniques, using operational management as a tool to accomplish the organization’s strategic objectives or company, particularly in terms of competition, it can encourage managers and leaders to think strategically.

Maintaining Long Term Objectives

In Maintaining long-term objectives in educational strategic management, the following characteristics, as shown above, are creating innovative programs, sustaining the survival of the institutions, keeping the institute progressing, and achieving top standards. It includes strengths and weaknesses for the effective management of environmental opportunities and risk, and lastly, a configuration of the results that are expected to be achieved in the future.

 According to (Dias, 2018; Ashittey, 2022; and Sabaruddin et al., 2022), maintaining long-term objectives creates innovative programs because the school administrators can examine the efficacy of particular programs and enhance them in response to their results. It ensures the institutions’ survival by demonstrating future planning for the organization’s benefit and providing a potential solution to any issues that might arise (Ashittey, 2022; Syarifudin et al., 2022)

According to Ashittey (2022), decisions made by management regarding implementing measures to put a newly decided strategy into place and overseeing the ongoing pursuit of that plan. It is crucial to carry out the new plan to increase competence and effectiveness in decision-making while demonstrating quantifiable progress toward achieving the desired outcomes and objectives.

Diaz (2018) defines Organizational Strategy “as the determination of the basic long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of course of action and allocation of resources necessary for carrying out goal.”, thus the value of sound planning facilitates the implementation of the strategy and, eventually, results in success.

Additionally, planning is one of the management’s responsibilities. Management is frequently viewed as a technique to control the company effectively and efficiently until the point of execution and evaluation, ensuring its goals and objectives are met (Sabaruddin et al.,2022; Ashittey, 2022).

Emerging Feedback

In Emerging Feedback in Educational Strategic Management, the following characteristics are:  improves execution and maintains transparency in planning action and continuous improvement in the strategy control and determination of fair performance criteria.

Human resources are essential to educational administration in this challenging world since they are the ones who will carry out the task. The school administration should comprehend the characteristics of developing feedback to complete the task to boost the standard of educational quality. So, emerging feedback can help an organization run more efficiently. To balance developing plans and acting, leaders must be aware of the input, process, and output of feedback data as well as the impact and feedback of the teachers while creating educational strategic management. Leaders should establish fair performance criteria to clarify things for the teachers (Swain & Pradhan, 2020; Yaakob et al., 2019; Bahri, 2020).

According to Swain and Pradhan (2020), these institutions also frequently incorporate strategic planning, which enables organizations to respond to macroeconomic environmental and educational policies to improve the future.

Any organization must handle both internal and external environments. The shape, style, and nature of the interactions increase in complexity with the organization’s size. Because there are many various types of organizational leaders, it makes it more and more difficult for them to make decisions. Therefore, strategic and operational management must discover a fast and suitable solution (Ashittey, 2022; Sabaruddin et al., 2022; and Ramdhan, 2019).

Additionally, emerging feedback is essential to educational strategic management since it helps decision-makers in an organization make good choices.

Summary Of Suggestions From Various Literature

In providing a synthesis of the different recommendations from various works of literature, it used the four elements of strategic management, namely (1) environmental scanning, (2) strategy formulation, (3) strategy implementation, and (4) evaluation and control, as shown in Table 6.

Table 6  Synthesis of the Different Suggestions / Recommendations

With this scoping review, the authors aimed to contribute to educational strategic management, such as efficient organizational structure, dynamic management skills, maintaining long-term objectives, and emerging feedback that helps school leaders manage schools. Because leaders need to evaluate how to manage their loose and tight configurations and, as a result, reinforce simultaneous personal and organizational factors associated with school improvement, strategic leadership is becoming increasingly relevant. As a result of a deeper comprehension of the constructions, it is now time to advance the research into more intricate, longitudinal, and explanatory methods. This integrative and systematic evaluation of the educational literature on strategy and strategic leadership of determining the features of strategic management in education was an attempt to contribute to the overall goal of this project.

Research Agenda

Institutionalized education policies are derived from a wide range of short-term and long-term planning activities, such as development plans, government programs, and strategic plans, to find a solution to this issue and investigate the requirements that the field of strategic management will have shortly. Based on the demographics of the various literature, only some studies that the schools and school leaders must understand and realize the features of strategic management in education were noted in Southeast Asia. Hence, it can be a source of another similar study in the context of these countries. Lastly, the output of this study gains social relevance because the results can substantially satisfy all school leaders. They may utilize the results of this study in crafting and enhancing policy and implementation, and this can be an avenue to present this study in various local, national, and international forums, which will also have the potential to publish this work in a reputable journal.

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• Ahn E. J. & Kang H. (2018). Introduction to systematic review and meta-analysis. Korean Journal of Anaesthesiology, 103-112
• Ashittey, A. J. (2022). An examination of the strategic management practices of selected private educational institutions in the Accra Metropolis. A Christian perspective. ADDRI Journal (Multidisciplinary). DOI: https://doi.org/10.55058/adrrij.v31i3%0(8)%20July-September.926
• Bahri, Saiful. (2020). Strategic planning and management of human resources in educational institutions. EDUKASI : Jurnal Pendidikan Islam (e-Journal), 8(1), 62–84. Retrieved from https://www.ejournal.staim-tulungagung.ac.id/index.php/edukasi/article/view/245
• Bush, T., & Coleman, M. (2018). Strategic management in education. Sage Journal, p. 463.
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• Nyagah, A. S. (2015). Challenges of formulation of strategic plans in secondary schools in Kenya: A case of Mombasa county and its environs. Journal of Education and Practice, 182-183.
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• Ranganathan, P., & Aggarawal R. (2020). Study designs: Part 7 systematic reviews. Perspectives in Clinical Research11(2):97. DOI:4103/picr.PICR_84_20
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The Importance of Strategic Planning in Education

RELATED TAGS:

blog , Education , Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a method used in various industries to deliberately guide decision-making. In education, strategic planning provides leaders with guidance to keep the institution operating, carry out its missions and comply with regulations. Educational strategic planning focuses on the future of a college or university, providing an intentional way to reflect on performance and determine where to implement initiatives to make positive changes for the future.

To create effective university strategic plans, administrators and stakeholders must understand the ins and outs of how they work and how they can apply them.

In This Article

• Lack of Ownership
• Poor Strategic Alignment
• Poor Communication
• Slow Plan Adoption
• Improve Efficiency
• Engage Stakeholders and the Community
• Form a Focus
• Plan a Future
• Test Your Hypotheses
• Use Specific Language
• Make Implementation a Priority
• Hold Team Members Accountable

Transform Strategic Planning and Execution Within Your Education Institution With AchieveIt

The challenges of strategic planning in education.

Universities and colleges face several pressures and challenges that can complicate strategic planning in educational environments. Understanding some of these challenges can help you overcome them to create an impactful approach.

1. Lack of Ownership

While strategic plans involve feedback and participation from all of your institution’s departments and entities, you should limit ownership of the plan and documentation to one person. Without explicit ownership over the strategic plan, initiatives are more likely to be lost, forgotten or overlooked. With one person in charge, your school is more likely to achieve success.

2. Poor Strategic Alignment

Alignment and representation across your university are crucial to success. Universities and colleges often experience a lack of strategic alignment because the church and state divisions typically have different goals for schools. These clashing perspectives lead to poor strategic alignment and a stand-still in decision-making.

3. Poor Communication

Many educational institutions also struggle with strategic planning due to poor organizational communication. Effectively implementing a strategic plan requires institutional-wide teamwork. Poor communication significantly increases the difficulty of agreeing upon and executing effective solutions and setting attainable goals.

4. Slow Plan Adoption

With a significant focus on innovation and growth, universities may make numerous changes in a year. Constant changes often lead to low motivation to adopt new plans. The longer your teams take to implement a strategic plan, the more likely it is to become outdated. When this situation happens, the plan becomes irrelevant to your current processes.

Why Education Institutions Need Strategic Planning

Despite the inherent challenges, educational strategic planning is necessary for a successful institution operation. A strategic plan can help you improve several aspects of your educational institution through intentional goal-setting and initiative implementation. Strategic planning for colleges and universities helps students, staff and the community progress toward a better future.

Here are a few reasons you should use strategic planning in education:

1. Improve Efficiency

One of the biggest reasons to begin strategic planning is the opportunity for improved efficiency in numerous areas of your organization. The challenges of educational planning often lead to a lack of efficiency. Strategic planning for schools allows leaders to determine more effective ways to streamline processes.

For example, your decision-making teams may take significant time to agree on new policies or procedures. Strategic planning helps your institution use time more efficiently because it allows you to form decision-making strategies.

Improved efficiency also results in better cost-effectiveness. The less time is wasted, the more money you’ll save, especially over time.

2. Engage Stakeholders and the Community

Strategic planning involves more people than only the primary decision-makers — your planning should involve your community and stakeholders. Feedback from these entities can help you develop a more beneficial and strategically targeted plan based on what these entities want or need from you. Engaging the stakeholders and community also shows you value their input and want to create an environment where they want to be.

3. Form a Focus

Determining a focus for the school year ahead can be challenging without clear objectives. Without focus, your institution will struggle to grow and attract students and staff. For example, you may have vague expectations for the upcoming school year, which prevents decisions and progress from being made. A strategic plan allows you to determine your goals and focus for the upcoming year and beyond while also helping you track your progress.

4. Plan a Future

Strategic planning is ideal for planning a successful future for your institution. Developing a plan for your future helps ensure your school can grow and continue benefiting from its offerings. Rather than being unprepared for the next year and future school years, you can effectively strategize to make the most of your school year.

Strategic Planning Tips for Education Institutions

While every school’s strategic plan will look different depending on its goals and resources, the strategic planning process is often similar for colleges and universities. Explore a few tips for educational strategic planning to help you get started:

1. Test Your Hypotheses

You’re ultimately hypothesizing the outcome when you set initiatives in your strategic plan. These hypotheses are often based on assumptions, though it’s typically best to experiment to determine what would work and what may not. For example, if you ask your faculty to begin submitting weekly reports, conduct a quick test to ensure they can do so and have time to do so.

2. Use Specific Language

Using vague or wordy language increases the risk of confusion and the possibility of initiatives being misunderstood and ignored. Swapping out complicated words for simpler, more specific words can help ensure everyone understands your plan. It can help to have someone review the language you use to ensure nothing is confusing and everyone is on the same page.

3. Make Implementation a Priority

Because schools involve numerous departments and divisions, implementing a plan can be difficult without prioritization . Make your plan a priority to ensure it’s properly implemented. Doing so is often easiest when leaders promote and require implementation.

4. Hold Team Members Accountable

Another way to make university strategic plans stick is by holding team members accountable. School performance management software allows you to track reports and other strategy-related information to determine who’s completing their duties so you can keep them accountable.

Educational institutions require significant planning to ensure a successful school year. Strategic planning software for higher education can help you focus your strategy despite your institution’s challenges. Software like AchieveIt has features that help your team turn ideas into actions.

A few things you can do with our software include:

• Solve common implementation challenges: AchieveIt makes connecting members of your team and various initiatives easy. You can track projects, keep everyone on the same page and quickly send updates.
• Gain comprehensive visibility: Our platform lets you see every initiative in real time, providing comprehensive visibility over progress.
• Consult with our experts: Our strategic plan experts help you execute your plan effectively. Draw on our expertise for inspiration or customize one of our templates to create your plan.

Let’s actually do this. Request a demo of AchieveIt to see what we can do for you today.

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By: Janice Vargo on February 13th, 2019

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Our Approach to Strategic Planning in Education

Innovative Leadership  |  Strategic Planning

The year 2020 is shaping up to be a record year - Summer Olympics, a World Cup, a presidential election, and in the education world, the year many strategic plans expire. As districts gear up to write their next strategic plan, we have mixed feelings about the process. At best, the process provides an opportunity for district leaders to coalesce around a shared vision. At worst, the process consumes valuable hours and produces a document that does little to change individual behavior.

We think there’s a better way. In his book The NEW School Rules: 6 Vital Practices for Thriving and Responsive Schools , our CEO Anthony Kim writes:

U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower said, “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” If “better student outcomes” is our shared mantra as educators, we need to stick vigilantly to that purpose as our guiding principle and direction, not the plans we make to get us there. We need to approach planning as a way of thinking, not a set “product” or “plan” that has value in and of itself.

At Education Elements, we challenge our district partners to focus more on the planning process rather than a static plan as the end goal. Why? By focusing the planning processes, districts are better able to:

• deepen their awareness of stakeholder needs
• build coherence across departmental initiatives
• build knowledge of leading practices
• prioritize efforts to maximize value for their students
• design structures to plan ahead and adapt
• define success metrics that build to overall KPIs

Our approach to strategic planning rests on the following three principles.

Principle #1 - Responsive Planning

Just like sports teams hold practices before games, a responsive planning process offers a valuable opportunity for district teams to practice working together. The most effective teams have developed a deep sense of trust . Districts should not wait until after the strategic plan is published to develop effective project management structures, monitoring systems, and processes for team learning. We believe that during the strategic planning process, district teams should start building habits and ways of working together that will carry forward into the implementation of the plan. Try out our Planning Workout 1A: Build Your Skills to Plan Using Known and Anticipated Data and our Planning Workout 1B: Build Your Skills To Think In “Planning,” Not “Plans” .

Principle #2 - Responsive Engagement

Too often districts treat stakeholder engagement processes as a one-way street -- focused solely on gathering community input. We believe the strategic planning process offers an excellent opportunity to educate stakeholders about why this planning process is different and what it means for each person. Districts must create urgency and identify the impact for the the community. The stakeholder engagement process should build knowledge and excitement; teach the community about why we are doing strategic planning differently; and enable the district to collect data and feedback from the community about successes and challenges from the previous strategic planning round.

Principle #3 - Responsive Implementation

We’ve seen too many strategic plans that include specific actions that are supposed to take place three or four years in the future. It’s impossible to know if those will be the right steps to take given ever-changing conditions. Instead, we believe that a strategic plan should identify major themes and goals for each year, but focus more effort on developing a rigorous methodology that will give district leaders more accurate information in order to make better planning canvases.

For more information on the Education Elements approach to planning:

• Our Strategy Development Services
• A sample deliverable of a District Strategic Plan
• Our Planning Toolkit and Chapter on Planning from The NEW School Rules , by CEO Anthony Kim
• Blog Post: What is the missing step in your district’s strategic plan?

Interested in learning more about strategic planning, responsive practices, and innovative leadership - and collaborating with education leaders and thinkers from across the country while you're at it? Join us at the Personalized Learning Summit May 14-16, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia! Tickets are selling fast.

About Janice Vargo

Janice is an Associate Partner on the Design and Implementation Team at Education Elements. She has supported a diverse group of districts in their personalized learning journey. Prior to Education Elements, Janice was a Senior Consultant for UPD Consulting where she supported state education agencies, K-12 school districts, and nonprofits on a variety of policy and technology projects. She holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree in American Studies and Spanish from the University of Notre Dame.

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Strategic Planning

Strategic planning consultants for colleges, universities & schools, design and achieve your desired future..

Effective strategic planning is the lynchpin for successful management of educational institutions in our rapidlychanging world. The [Stevens Strategy] 5–phased strategic planning process has been proven successful at numerous colleges, universities and schools, whether they are large or small, public or independent. Our process encourages the president and board to lead their institution in developing its vision and strategy, yet it also provides a process that allows the whole campus community — its faculty, staff, students, alumni and others — to take ownership of the plan through extensive involvement in its development. The consistent achievement of both of these objectives (executive leadership and broad ownership) while producing a sound and compelling strategic plan is a feat that distinguishes the [Stevens Strategy] process.

The five strategic planning phases include:

Phase I: Process Design Phase II: Responses to Strategic Issues Phase III: Strategic Agenda Development Phase IV: Operational Planning Phase V: Implementation

We can work with your institution through some or all five phases, depending on your needs, to develop and achieve the path to your desired future.

Click here to view a printable PDF of our Strategic Planning Services

• “To you John and Brendan, as well as all those at [Stevens Strategy] — with a special thanks to Michael for all the financial work and help — we at Rosemont are so grateful. You did say that you hoped to exceed our expectations (which were really high!) and you did. You have certainly been there for us, in so many ways, all the way through what for us was an amazing, historic, and transformative process. Thank you.” Dr. Sharon Hirsh, President, Rosemont College
• “It has been my pleasure to work with [Stevens Strategy]. Not only has it been beneficial to my College, but I also learn something new with each project that we engage the firm. As an administrator, sometimes you have a tendency to think you have all the answers for your institution. [Stevens Strategy] has helped us transform our institution because they asked us to examine our institution differently, look to our external environment, create a vision, develop a plan to implement that vision, and then measure the success of the plan’s implementation (and three years later help us design the next phase of implementation). We are a different institution today because of Stevens. [new paragraph] The final business plan far exceeded my expectations in its depth and support for the overall vision, particularly in the area of financial projections (where you really prove if your plan works). By far the most successful aspect of the project was working with Brendan Leonard in producing the final document. He was able to provide an objective “eye” for the project and was particularly helpful in building the financial worksheets. Both [John and Brendan] are engaging, insightful and visionary in their ability to help you take your institution to the next level. This is the second major engagement we have had with [Stevens Strategy] and we will definitely be working with them again. I will gladly rave about the firm to anyone you like!” Dr. Sharon DeVivo, Senior VP, Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology
• “Over the past 10 years, Vaughn College has engaged [Stevens Strategy] in a variety of projects from an institution-wide strategic planning effort and academic program review to board development and financial modeling. We continue to work with this dynamic group because of their ability to understand institutional issues, frame those issues for the constituents involved and help to lead constructive and engaging conversations on our campus. This exceptional service is the result of John Stevens and Brendan Leonard’s insightful and visionary ability to assist you in taking your institution to the next level. Every time we have worked with John, Brendan and the rest of the team they have exceeded our expectations.” Dr. Sharon DeVivo, Senior VP, Vaughn College
• “Gwynedd-Mercy College achieved great success with [Stevens Strategy] in developing its strategic agenda and operational plan. The firm’s knowledge and expertise enabled the college to engage in an inclusive collaborative process that resulted in tangible products that will carry GMC forward. In the end, I have not only a plan document (and related financial tools), but also a methodology and structure to sustain the planning process.” [new paragraph] “I very much appreciated the personal attention I received from John, Brendan and Michael. John Stevens was an outstanding communicator who was well received by all members of our college community. Furthermore, Brendan Leonard was extremely effective in working with a broad range of college constituents. I would not hesitate to recommend [Stevens Strategy] to my colleagues in the higher education community.” Dr. Kathleen Owens, President, Gwynedd-Mercy College

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Five steps to planning for improved learning.

Improving educational quality through education sector plans

The techniques of strategic planning in education are well-developed, but students’ actual learning experiences have not always been the central concern. In the context of the new Education 2030 focus on education quality, what steps can planners go through to ensure that their education sector plans give priority to improving students’ learning outcomes?

Developing an education sector strategic plan can be a complex and iterative process. But in its simplest form,  Planning for Learning   involves five basic steps, from analysis of the current situation through to the detailed planning needed to accomplish change. Below, we suggest some of the key questions education planners need to ask in order to focus each step of this process on improving learning outcomes.

1. Education sector analysis: Where are we now?  

The process of planning for improved learning outcomes starts with a diagnosis of the current situation in the education sector, with a specific focus on learning.

Questions to ask : What information about students’ learning do we have, and what are we missing? What are students learning and how well are they learning it? Does their learning match the needs, aspirations, and plans of their parents, communities, and the nation? What are the major learning successes and weaknesses, and what are the causes behind them?

Tools planners can use:   Assessment data ,  Other monitoring data ,  SWOT analysis ,  Problem tree analysis . 

2. Policy and strategies: Where do we want to go?  

A plan for improving learning outcomes should offer a vision of a desirable situation for the education system in the future, and identify the ways to reach this situation.

Questions to ask : What are our end goals for improving learning? What are our medium-term objectives? Which strategies will be effective in achieving these learning goals and objectives?

Tools planners can use : Explore  strategies for improving learning , Convert your  problem tree into a solution tree ,   Complete a  strategic planning grid .

3.  Programmes: How do we get there?  

Once policy priorities and key strategies have been defined, they must be translated into specific actionable programmes.

Questions to ask:  What are the immediate results or outputs that must be achieved in order to meet our learning objectives and end goals? Which programmes and activities must be carried out in order to produce those outputs? How will objectives and outputs be measured?

Tools planners can use : Complete a  Logical Framework Matrix , Develop  indicators and targets .

4.  Costing and financing: How much will it cost and who will pay?  

To be achievable, policy priorities and strategies have to be consistent with the demographic and economic realities.

Questions to ask : What are the categories of costs involved in each of our activities to improve learning? What are the other recurring costs in the education sector? Do we need to account for growth (population growth, increased attendance, etc.) when calculating our recurring and new programme costs? What are our projected sources of funding and does the total match our projected costs?

Tools planners can use:   Simulation models ,  Budget template for GPE grants .  

Once projected costs have been established, policies, strategies, activities and/or targets may have to be revised in an iterative process until the plan is feasible in all respects.

5. Action plan: Who will do what and when?  

The action plan is sometimes referred to as an implementation plan or operational plan. It outlines the detailed activities for a specific period of the plan, with information on timing, roles, responsibilities, and costs.

Questions to ask : Which institutions and departments are responsible for each activity to improve learning outcomes? When should each activity be accomplished? Will the financial resources be ready on time?

Tools planners can use :  Action plan template ,   Gantt chart .  

The Next Step: Monitoring your plan

Once an action plan has been determined, planners need to ask themselves: How will we monitor whether these activities, outputs, and objectives are accomplished? What kind of data will we collect in order to see whether we are improving our education quality and students’ learning outcomes? and, How and when will this information be collected and analysed? For a more in-depth look at the education sector planning process, two helpful resources are the GPE/IIEP   Guidelines for Education Sector Plan Preparation  and IIEP’s  Strategic Planning: Techniques and Methods .

You can also learn more by reading our  Plan for Learning articles  and searching for resources in the  IIEP Learning Portal Library.

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Strategic Planning

7 reasons why schools need strategic planning.

By Mary King

20 march 2023.

• 1 1. A strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission and values
• 2 2. A strategic plan effectively organizes schools, staff, and time
• 3 3. A strategic plan defines how success is measured
• 4 4. A strategic plan helps with decision-making, responsiveness, and innovation
• 5 5. A strategic plan increases communication and engagement
• 6 6. A strategic plan keeps everyone in a school—from teachers to administrators—connected
• 7 7. The best reason of all for strategic planning comes back to every great school’s number one priority: students
• 8 Download the guide ↓

The past three years have been disruptive for every sector. For educational institutions, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone–from staff and teachers, to the students who had to switch to a new modality of learning, to the parents supporting them. Strategic planning in education has revealed itself to be a very important part of recovering. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the COVID-19 pandemic forced nearly 55 million children home in the US alone—and at least 1.4 billion children out of school or child care across the globe. Higher education institutions have been profoundly financially impacted , and both the learning experience and mental wellbeing of the students has been negatively affected.

While every educational institution was impacted by this, some schools were more prepared than others to face the unique challenges COVID-19 posed–those schools who had previously established strategic plans were better prepared to navigate the pandemic than those without.

It’s clear to us: Schools that embrace a great strategic plan, and commit to strategic planning in education, have clear advantages over schools that don’t.

We’re going to talk about some of those advantages now, look at some examples of strategic planning in education, and give 7 reasons for why every school with a vision of excellence for their students should embrace a strategic planning process for schools. Whether it’s getting back on track after a hugely disruptive, global event like COVID-19, identifying the most important strategies to improve student outcomes, or increasing staff engagement, all schools benefit from strategic planning and strategic plan implementation.

1. A strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission and values

The ability for schools to collaborate, share, and communicate short and long term goals is a critical part of moving plans forward in line with a vision, mission, and values. Schools benefit from a well communicated and executed strategic plan that keeps everyone informed of their strategic goals, and how their actions are contributing to the achievement of these goals. This enables parents, staff, community members, and stakeholders to work towards a common vision.

A major additional benefit of strategic planning in education is that it provides an opportunity for active employee engagement across an organization. When it comes to strategic planning for educational institutions, that benefit remains present. Research suggests that a leading cause for employee discontent (in general, but especially in the public sector) is that employees don’t understand how the work they’re doing helps their greater organization.

If the school is able to clearly define and remind employees and stakeholders of the shared vision, employees are more likely to feel connected to the work they are doing within that organization. Whether that work is educating students, organizing reports, performing critical administrative duties, or coordinating the process of standardized testing, everyone plays a part in a student’s success.

2. A strategic plan effectively organizes schools, staff, and time

We understand that schools–whether they are elementary schools, high schools, or higher education institutions– are complex institutions, with boards, committees, districts, unions, and many different types of stakeholders involved. Because the organizations themselves are so large, and plans are often multi-year, complex entities built up by multiple stakeholders and workers, struggles with organization and effective time management are common.

Envisio provides strategic planning software for educational institutions , and because Envisio works exclusively with the public sector, we understand the unique, complex, and often large scale planning needs of public sector organizations.

“I see Envisio very much as a focusing tool as I work with my team. If you’ve got great people, your primary job is not to get in their way […] I can stay on top of performance in a way that is really unobtrusive, and I don’t have to necessarily interact directly with an individual to get a sense of what’s going on. I can stay abreast of the action plans in the communications department or the action plans in a particular school. If we’re missing the mark on a key performance measure, I can focus more time on having the right conversations.” – Peter Hilts, Chief Education Officer for District 49

3. A strategic plan defines how success is measured

In order to achieve success, it’s important to know what success means, and where to take action first. It is difficult to get a strategic action plan underway without a firm understanding of what problems you’re wanting to solve. When it comes to strategic planning in the public sector, determining clear benchmarks for success is especially important, because the goals are often a combination of abstract, impact-based metrics, and concrete, output-based goals.

Different types of educational institutions are going to have different challenges, and different metrics of success: the educational strategic plans of a public school board district are going to look a lot different from a college or university! The shared reality is that every school with a strategy is better able to monitor its progress toward key outcomes and evaluate where and how it may have gotten off track. Using a strategy implementation software like Envisio can help with measuring success.

At Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED), in Portage County, Ohio, they are measuring success across six pillars, with forty two strategic initiatives . Many of their strategic plan elements (goals, strategies, and actions) include promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion for their students, staff, and employees. Being a major medical research university that is training future medical professionals, diversity, equity, and inclusivity is a critical—and practical—metric! Some of the performance measures that NEOMED tracks include gender demographics, and actionable items towards decreasing disability stigma as part of their Strategic Plan: Creating Transformational Leaders Dashboard .

No matter what your benchmark for “success” is—be it a more impact-focused concept such as “be more welcoming” or more concretely articulated in output terms such as “create a low-cost tutoring center using the library after school”, your strategic plan will provide you with the steps to make get that success underway, and stay on track.

4. A strategic plan helps with decision-making, responsiveness, and innovation

A strategic plan helps educational institutions remain agile during times of change, and also helps them better define what they intend to achieve when it comes to their student success objectives and their greater organizational goals. With a strategic plan in place, educational institutions have a roadmap which they can use to track, evaluate, and modify plans to facilitate better governance decisions and provide clearer direction for the future of the school. This helps a school maintain a steady rhythm of progress towards their goals, and remain ahead of the curve–both in terms of educational innovation, and when (not if) a disruptive change occurs.

“It’s difficult, because you’re trying to help students prepare for the future – to prepare for jobs that might not exist yet. You’re trying to develop educators and an education that gives them the skills to think critically.” – Dr. Alison Gillespie, the Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning with White Bear Lake Area School District (WBLAS) in Ramsey County, Minnesota

White Bear Lake Area School District (WBLAS), MN, was able to leverage their strategic plan as a way to embrace change and turn obstacles (like COVID-19) into opportunities for success. They embraced active learning techniques and, through their strategic plan, were able to think ahead to turn disruptions into teachable moments that engaged students and staff alike.

5. A strategic plan increases communication and engagement

A strategic plan ( and particularly, one that is publicly communicated on a dashboard ) helps with overall communication and engagement. For a school board, communicating that your plans and your metrics for success are part of a larger, holistic plan, is critical to building trust with stakeholders and maintaining effective engagement—both internally, and externally.

Strategic planning in education is critical in settings where trust is paramount. Educational institutions—at all levels—work on the understanding that one group (the educators) has knowledge they can impart, share, or coax out in another group (the students). The need for a trusting relationship with the students and everyone involved in that student’s success needs to be central to a positive educational environment.

A strategic plan that can be easily found, referenced, and understood helps assure everyone involved that the school in question is aware of their plans, has them in focus, and has a plan for their shortcomings. Educational strategic planning also has the additional benefit of keeping stakeholders—such as donors—excited about the school’s vision. When it comes to fundraising, donors are more likely to support a school that has a clear vision and a strategy to make it happen.

6. A strategic plan keeps everyone in a school—from teachers to administrators—connected

A well implemented and communicated strategic plan holds all staff accountable for their actions and encourages collaboration. In educational settings, this circle of responsibility is extended out towards the community; providing excellent and accessible education is an effort that requires all hands on deck. Being able to simplify the strategic planning process and make it visible and easy to use is one way to ensure everyone stays connected.

One of the benefits of using a strategic planning software partner like Envisio is that individual action plans (from individual schools or departments) can be aligned, all the way up to a greater strategic objective. For multi-year, complex plans, such as setting a national standard of excellence, or incorporating culturally significant teachings—it’s important that teachers and staff are able to understand who is working on what, and where it fits into the greater whole.

7. The best reason of all for strategic planning comes back to every great school’s number one priority: students

Best of all, strategic planning in education provides a framework so that the most important priority of the school – students’ educational achievement – is taken care of. Having a sturdy educational strategic plan helps keep issues like digital equity , accessibility , literacy , preparation for an ever changing workforce , and social and environmental enrichment , front of mind. When the experience of the student is the priority for the school, the strategic plan becomes a collaborative effort to figure out how best to set students up for success.

Being on the same page for these goals is extremely important for schools: sound planning and communication helps ensure that stakeholders, including parents, teachers, administrators, principals, board members, and the greater community, are all striving for the same overall vision. And, when it comes to putting those plans into action, schools especially benefit from the habit of consistent performance measurement, which is something a strategic plan can help in ingraining.

For complex, multi-layered institutions such as an educational institute to successfully reach their goals—particularly after being so dramatically impacted by COVID-19—it requires not only proper management of human, budgetary, and time resources, but the creation of high-output teams, engaged and effective staff and teachers, and the consistent monitoring of progress. For schools, a strategic plan provides a north star for deepening a sense of community and knowledge, and breaks down the actionable steps to reach critical goals.

Download the guide ↓

Mary King is a professional writer and researcher based in Toronto. She comes to Envisio with a Masters Degree, where she researched the relationship between the disappearance of urban public spaces, and high level decision-making processes in local governments. For nearly a decade, Mary has worked as a community organizer, promoter, and supportive researcher in a variety of nonprofits and think-tanks, and her favorite area of focus was in connecting local artists with marginalized youth. Since 2017, her writings and research on policy, local governance, and its relationship to public art and public space has been presented at conferences internationally. She has also served as both a conference chair and lead facilitator on professional and academic conferences across Canada on how to better bridge academic research with local change-agents, policy makers, artists, and community members. Envisio’s mission of excellence and trust in the public sector maps onto Mary's interest in local government and community mobilization. She loves working at Envisio because she cares about having well organized, strategic, and transparent public organizations and local governments. Mary is also a creative writer and musician and has been supported in her practice by the Canada Council for the Arts. Her stories can be found in literary journals across Canada.

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Why Is Strategic Planning & Education Management Important for Schools?

School administration requires the combined efforts of everybody involved: school leaders, educators, and their communities. All must work together to ensure students have access to adequate resources and support.

Supervision of educational strategies involves setting goals and accommodating students as they work to reach them. Educators need to know how to implement classroom procedures that will assist their students throughout their educational journeys.

What Is the Value of Data for Schools?

Student success is only possible with the right tools. Collecting and analyzing information related to student learning provides a window into how each individual’s educational career should be planned. Data for schools gives decision-makers a clearer picture of student achievement so they can set goals and manage progress.

Behavioral assessments, report cards, and other personal information can give educators insight into how a student might respond to specific policies. For schools, this means that important metrics, such as teacher performance, student progress, and graduation rates, can be assessed over time.

The Power of Strategic Planning and Education Management

Strategic planning and education management are important to schools because they bring crucial insights that allow decision-makers to adjust their student goals and provide the necessary resources to give learners the best opportunities possible.

Having a formal system for considering the long-term consequences of specific strategies and communicating expected results is essential for properly allocating a school’s resources where they’re needed.

Think Through Outcomes

Education management involves directing individual learners so they can continue to progress. With strategic planning, teachers can consider student goals and lead them in the right direction. This allows educators to consider their expectations for student outcomes.

Strategic planning and education management allow decision-makers to create useful policies and make better decisions in the moment.

Create a Shared Vision

Education management is much easier when everybody is on the same page. Making sure educators, administrators, and leadership have a clear picture of performance and pain points can go a long way toward improving student outcomes.

Strategic planning and education management also allow school administrators to create a shared vision to reinforce a sense of collective responsibility.

Leverage Available Resources

Schools are often working with limited resources. Being able to take advantage of whatever is available to drive student learning is essential for education.

Combining strategic planning with education management allows decision-makers to effectively allocate available resources to ensure student success.

Education management software makes it easier for educators to accomplish common tasks and manage student data. With Inno™ by Innovare , educators have all they need to help their students succeed.

Innovare Understands the Importance of Strategic Planning for Education Management

Strategic planning and education management require a concerted effort on the part of school administrators. This can be difficult when resources are already stretched thin. Inno™ by Innovare gives educators a valuable asset when planning and implementing their educational strategies.

Inno™ provides detailed insights that help education professionals make decisions informed by real-world data that can create a positive impact on students and their communities.

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