Kostan seeks OK of planning framework

LYNN – Superintendent Nicholas Kostan has requested the School Committee approve a framework for the district’s strategic plan before hiring his replacement next month.Kostan presented the framework to the Committee Thursday night and requested immediate approval, but the board instead decided to table the plan for review and vote to approve at its next meeting in early December.The district has been working on a framework for a long-term strategic plan since 2004, when it contracted with Mass Insight Education to conduct a review of district operations and progress. Since that review, Kostan and his staff have worked with a coalition of parents, teachers and community leaders to develop the framework for a “strategic and integrated plan for change,” the first of its kind in the district.The framework essentially works to lay the foundation for the future of the Lynn Public Schools and with the majority of Kostan’s administrative team now retired, and the superintendent stepping aside himself in January, his hope is to establish the framework now so that the next generation of administrators can keep the district moving forward and have a basic plan to work off of.”With a large turnover in the department in the last six months, the entire curriculum team has been re-vamped,” said Kostan. “With a new superintendent coming on next month, I thought it was important that we establish a framework for the new team. I would like to see the committee approve this plan now so that when the next person comes in they can build on the work that has been done by this group.”Kostan said he chose to set a framework for the strategic plan, rather than institute the plan itself, because strategic plans should be open to change and modification as needed.”In any organization, effective strategic plans develop and change as modified and new strategies are needed to achieve the central vision,” he wrote in a letter to the committee. “The strategies which are ultimately selected for achieving this vision should be crafted by the future leaders and managers charged with the responsibility of guiding the Lynn Public Schools to increased proficiency for our students.”The framework is made up of a vision statement, mission statement and three basic themes: school climates and culture, learning and teaching, and family and community.The goal is to start by creating a positive, clean, safe and drug-free atmosphere for students to learn and work so that the district can then focus on high scholastic and social achievement for each student. Finally, the district seeks to include families and the community in the education of the child in an effort to extend learning beyond the classroom.The Lynn Public Schools have never had a strategic plan or even a framework to work from in the past, but Kostan was quick to note that while the district has received funding from and are working closely with the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on the plan, it was Lynn people that conceived the ideals and goals listed based on their knowledge of the city and its students.”This is a very broad-based group that has worked on this, but they are all Lynn people. This is our framework developed by people in the community,” he said.