Deborah Campbell
C209 Strategic Management – Task 2
Western Governor’s University
Executive Summary
Splendora Independent School District is located in a very small community 40
miles north of Houston, Texas. The di
...
Deborah Campbell
C209 Strategic Management – Task 2
Western Governor’s University
Executive Summary
Splendora Independent School District is located in a very small community 40
miles north of Houston, Texas. The district is comprised of one high school, one junior
high school and three elementary schools. With a current overall student population of
more than 4,100 students, the district is poised to grow within the next five years.
Splendora’s mission of “Cultivating Exceptional People” begins with great
leadership from the superintendent and the school board. They believe that reaching
the mission begins with a strong vision statement. They focus on doing things “right” as
indicated in their vision, listed below:
Right People
Right Things
Right Way
Right Resources
Right Relationships (About Us/Homepage. n.d.)
The district has a strategic plan in place to become a district of innovation. This
plan will all “Splendora ISD will be able to implement the Board’s vision of developing
and providing an educational setting where every student is empowered to be selfmotivated, confident, adaptable in learning, critical-thinking, and a productive citizen.”
(District of Innovation/Overview. n.d.)
The plan includes district-level decision making, teacher certifications, flexible
appraisal/evaluation procedures, flexible school calendar, and flexible minimum
attendance criteria.
The execution of this plan includes creating internal committees comprised of
parents, community members, administrators, and teachers. Each committee will
research and analyze data, disseminate and compare the data and decide if change is
relevant. Once the decisions are reached the committee will either create a plan of
action or reject the proposed plan.
Financial implications in a school setting are vastly different than the corporate
arena. Schools receive state funds based on attendance. For the sake of this
assignment, we will focus only on the financial implications of school attendance.
According to Missing School Matters.org (n.d.), student attendance equals
approximately $38 per child which calculates to approximately $20,000 per week for
high schools in the state. Attendance is part of this strategic plan and help ensure that
attendance is at the forefront of our minds as we plan for the coming years.
While this strategic plan is focused on several issues, the overarching goal is to
become the best district possible and provide our students the opportunity to become
the best citizens they can be through real-life relevant instruction that is both innovative
and flexible.
Vision, Mission and Value Statement
The most important goal of superintendent, Dr. Jeff Burke, is to “cultivate
exceptional people” and impart on them the ability to build relationships with
administrators, students, parents, and community. His belief is that he can achieve this
goal by hiring the right people who will do the right things in the right way using the right
resources and with that, they will build the right relationships. Building relationship is
one of the most important things throughout Splendora ISD. (About Us/Homepage,
n.d.)
In addition to the mission and vision, Splendor has a set of core principles that
drive their goal to becoming a district of innovation. These core principles are the
expectation from the highest level of superintendent, to the lowest level of janitorial staff.
No matter what your title is within the district, you have the ability to drive change. The
goal is not to wear titles but to embrace the students and build relationships. The core
principles include:
o Create a dynamic learning environment.
o Ensure a safe physical, emotional, and social environment.
o Be accountable.
o Value each other.
o Live with integrity.
o Develop servant leaders.
o Focus on student needs. (About Us/Homepage, n.d.)
If every stakeholder within the district embraces even one of these core
principles, they could impact the life of a child. The goal is to embrace them, live them,
breathe them and model them. Children learn by example therefore we should all
mirror the example of the people we want them to become.
Analytical Tools
Within any state funded corporation, using the PEST analysis tool allows us to
evaluate the external factors that play a role in every decision that affects the district.
According to Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland (2018), PEST stands for
Political, Economic, Sociological and Technological. This tool can help the district focus
on the opportunities and threats to their strategic plans.
Below is are the areas the district will need to put their focus:
Political – what state and national policies/laws will affect the school district?
Economic – how dos the socioeconomic factors of the community affect the
enrollment/attendance of the students throughout the
district?
Society - how does the climate of the community affect student attitudes
towards enrollment and attendance?
Technology - how does technology both enhance and impede learning outcomes
throughout the district?
According to the United States Census Bureau (2019), Splendora’s poverty rate
of 13.4% is above the national poverty rate of 11.8%. With a population of just over
2,000 people this means that a significant number of students come from lower income
families. These factors affect everything in the students lives including school.
Another strategic tool that could be used is the five forces framework. According
to Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland (2018), this framework is one of the “most
powerful and widely used tools for diagnosing the principal competitive pressures in a
market.” The five forces include:
1. Competition from rivals – the district would need to consider neighboring
districts and home values to determine if community members would consider
moving to be in a better school district.
2. Competition from new entrants – when communities are growing around the
district, they need to consider the draw of that community to their current
community members to determine if there would be a reason for them to
leave this district.
3. Competition from producers of substitute products – this would be evaluating
the online market and the homeschooling options for schooling. Parents
need to feel that their children are safe, secure and being educated in a
school district or they will seek other options.
4. Supplier bargaining power – the district will need to evaluate what bargaining
power other districts and other educational platforms offer that could be more
powerful than what they offer.
5. Customer bargaining power – the district will need to consider the parent
needs and what bargaining tools the community m
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