Blueprint For Education Still Being Refined, School Board Told
The document听being prepared by a governor’s task force is expected to complement the Department of Education’s own strategic plan.
It鈥檚 been two weeks since a unveiled an updated draft听of its听values and visions for Hawaii public education, from kindergarten to college.
In an to the Board of Education on Tuesday, Stephen Terstegge of the task force said it has been collecting online, with a majority of commenters indicating that they support the draft that was provided. The task force plans to present a final document in January.
鈥淲e鈥檙e at a point where internally we鈥檙e working to make it as cohesive and refined as possible but we still want to be open to external voices, in case there鈥檚 any strong themes that emerge that we鈥檝e missed in our in-person canvassing,鈥 Terstegge told the board.
The document, called , focused on school-level empowerment.
Work on the blueprint comes soon after the board approved听its own updated strategic plan that sets expectations for public schools to do a better job empowering students, prioritizing professional development and fostering innovation. The board approved the 听Dec. 6.听
Information from the two documents will be incorporated into the state鈥檚 implementation plan for the federal , which gives more authority to states to decide how they want to test students, evaluate teachers and define success. The state ESSA plan needs to be submitted to the federal Department of Education in the spring to ensure receiving federal funding.
Most of the input on the draft blueprint came from teachers, parents and administrators, with a majority of them located on Oahu, Terstegge told the board.
The governor’s task force听will continue to collect input and review the alignment between the blueprint, the strategic plan, the state ESSA plan and the new direction of the U.S. Department of Education, Terstegge said.
The idea is to have a final draft completed next month, with focus group meetings held later this month and in January. Community meetings will also be held from January to听March to share the final blueprint and how it aligns with the strategic and state ESSA plans.
According to Darrel Galera, chairman of the task force and a member of the Board of Education, having further discussions is 鈥渆ssential for the community to have a greater sense of clarity on where all this are moving.”
