For the first time in 20 years, Federal Way Public Schools officials will introduce a strategic plan.

The school board unanimously passed a resolution supporting the plan, which Superintendent Dr. Tammy Campbell presented at a school board meeting on Tuesday.

“Over the last five years, our data has not started to move up as a district. It has started a downward trajectory,” Campbell said. “So that tells you, you need to do something different. You can’t keep doing the same thing expecting to get different results.”

Campbell said the plan will get people, processes and programs on the same page.

Having worked on this plan for the duration it takes to create a child – “about nine months,” school board members joked – the district developed a core planning team of more than 100 people, an instruction focus team of 130, they reached out to more than 100 students and held several community forums, ultimately totaling more than 2,000 voices of input.

Campbell said the district could have rolled out goals without asking the community but found it important for people to “see their fingerprints” in the plan.

The teams identified a mission statement, a theory of action, and five goals to meet their “ends,” which include 1. graduation and attainment, 2. academic achievement and 3. personal responsibility and leadership.

Schools will focus on two goals in the 2016-2017 school year – one the district has chosen (goal No. 2) and a second of their choosing.

The goals include 1. Early years: Building the Foundation; 2. Whole Child: Thriving, confident, responsible individuals; 3. Active Learners: Engaged, empowered, critical thinkers; 4. Content-area Competency: Mastery of all subjects; and 5. Persistence to Graduation: High school graduation through successful transitions.

With the notion of equity threaded throughout each goal, Campbell said the district will measure various components of education to understand whether goals are being met. For example, for goal No. 2, there will be electronic tools to measure the percentage of students participating in at least 95 percent of classroom instructional time, the percentage of students and families participating in student-led conferences, percentage of students who complete 25 hours of community service by graduation (a new requirement for the class of 2020), and the number of students and families who feel their school is safe.

Campbell said measuring the number of students who attend class is important because “Federal Way has the second-highest chronic absences in the region, and we really want to focus in on that.”

The strategic plan also takes current best practices – posting learning targets and success criteria, engaging in student-led conferences and utilizing differentiated instruction – and applies them to the plan. Although Standards-Based Grading is staying, Campbell said the district will revisit it.

The school district will host “data summits” three times throughout the next year to monitor progress. It will officially launch the strategic plan at the back-to-school kick-off rally in August.

At the end of Campbell’s presentation, school board President Geoffery McAnalloy praised the work Campbell has done.

“When we look at college-bound scholarships and students that have applied, we were at the bottom of the heap the last two years,” McAnalloy said. “And I’m proud to say, based on Dr. Campbell and her team’s work, we now lead the districts in the South Sound.”

The district also chose a new logo that features a girl and boy being active and involved in education, accompanied by the tagline, “Each scholar: a voice, a dream, a bright future.”

To view the strategic plan in its entirety, visit www.fwps.org.