Jarrell ISD creating Strategic Plan for upcoming high-growth years

Jarrell ISD is creating a Strategic Plan to chart its next few years as it faces the challenges of a fastgrowth school district.

Laura Buckley, assistant superintendent of Student Services, is leading the effort and said the plan should be completed next April.

“We’re beginning this process right now and are asking defining questions — where we’ve been, where we are and what we want to be for students and families in the future,” she said.

JISD’s most recent Strategic Plan was created in 2019. Much has changed in the roughly three years since, Ms. Buckley said.

Enrollment has grown from about 1,900 students in 2019 to around 3,600 today.

In 2019, the district’s second elementary school, Igo, had just opened. Now, a third is under construction and will open in 2023. Planning for a future bond issue — and likely new school construction — is in its early stages.

That growth is not slowing down. According to the latest demographer’s report presented to JISD trustees on October 3, enrollment will double by the 202728 school year to nearly 7,500 students. In 10 years, 11,600 students are projected to be enrolled.

Enrollment growth and staffing bring changes in needs, priorities and expected outcomes, Ms. Buckley said.

“This new strategic plan will address who we are today and what we aspire to be through the next few years,” she said.

The end product, she said, will be a unified student learner profile, a vision of future outcomes, outlines of district and campus cultures and a long-term plan for students’ academic growth.

Foundational work toward those goals has begun. In September, district administrators were surveyed — described as “prework” of the plan — to assess strengths and needs.

Early this month, JISD trustees met to review and revise the district’s vision, mission and beliefs documents, determine categories of the Strategic Plan and choose 2-3 trustees to be members of the planning team.

A committee of more than 50 district residents, parents, students and staff will meet October 26 in a full-day retreat. The committee will review and revise the district’s mission statement and decide “the big topics going forward,” Ms. Buckley said.

An action team will create plans to make the larger committee’s strategies operational from January through March.

Top district leaders will then review and revise recommended actions for presentation and possible approval by the JISD Board of Trustees in April.

“We’re being very intentional to put plans and processes in place to guide us through this process,” Ms. Buckley said. “Our families and our community deserve an outcome that will ensure strong schools through the growth years ahead.”