No price discounts on strategic plan

With the holidays upon us, the wish lists of teachers, parents and

students for improving the Newport-Mesa Unified School District is a

step closer to being fulfilled.

Last week, trustees approved the final draft of the district’s

2005-10 strategic plan, which lays out goals that students, teachers

and administrators want to accomplish in the next five years.

It’s an ambitious vision.

Who wouldn’t want to create a teacher training center and

demonstration school, where educators can find the tools to improve

their teaching skills? A redesign of high school schedules and

curriculums? Absolutely. That’s what students wanted, and that’s what

they got -- at least on paper. That change, according to the draft,

outlines a restructured curriculum and schedule built around the

lifestyle of today’s students -- a life in which many work, use

computers, are involved in sports and community-service roles and

take advanced-placement classes that don’t lend themselves well to

the traditional school day.

We applaud the district’s vision for offering education in the

21st century, but wonder how much this all will cost.

Along with all of the other district expenses, expanded

after-school programs, summer and career programs will undoubtedly

tack on a hefty price tag. The bells and whistles of the vision --

hashed out by hundreds of community leaders, students and parents --

will be pricey, and with massive statewide budget cuts in funding for

the arts, we wonder if an art magnet can ever be realized, at least

in the next five years. We hope it can.

The costs of making the plan happen have not been hashed out,

school board president Dana Black said. The district has a roughly

$170-million budget, more than 85% of which goes to salary and

benefits.

But the costs of making the vision happen are worth it, Black

said, adding that a strategic plan also prompts stakeholders in the

district to tap funding sources outside of the district.

“If you don’t have a plan, you will never find the money,” she

said. “It lets the community, staff and students know where dollars

are going, so we are on the same page.”

An earlier plan, which outlined goals for 1999 through 2004,

helped the district restructure how it spends money on facilities and

textbooks while retiring some debt, Black said.

“I don’t think we could ever be too ambitious,” Black said of the

strategic plan. “If we want our students to be competitive, then we

need to be on the cutting edge.”

We applaud that ambition, but in a time when it is expected that

next year’s state budget deficit will be $7 billion, we hope this

vision is not vulnerable to the whims of the state budget ax.

“We have to be smarter than Sacramento,” Black said.

We agree. And we hope through it all, even with changes, at the

heart of learning remains good, old-fashioned teaching and some

children who want to learn.