Charleston Strategic Plan for Middle and High Schoolers

Background

The covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted almost all human activities. Among the youth, one of the significant effects of this disaster has been disrupting their learning and impairing academic progression. The impact has been so phenomenal and destructive to the extent of lowering their interest in education, which can be reflected in their academic report cards. The most affected group has been the middle and high school learners since they lack a strategic plan to keep them actively involved in learning activities. The realization of this challenge necessitated the stakeholders of Charleston County to develop a program that can help fill this gap.

Executive Summary

The program seeks to improve the academic performance of high school and middle school students by providing them with necessary materials and mentorship. The program focuses on raising the academic attainment of the students through boosting personalized learning, literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking skills among the learners. The initiative intends to achieve its goals and objectives by including the learners themselves and their parents and by adopting the inquiry-based learning method.

Mission, Vision, and Value Statement

Mission

The mission is to strengthen and motivate the young mind and create an environment that will prepare them to face the many challenges in an ever-changing world. The common problem youth are facing these days is in the enigma of the setting of priorities. Most young people are deviating from their goals due to artificial distractions, which turn out to be short-term objectives that harm the long-term objectives.

Vision

The vision of this plan is to engage, encourage, equip, and empower the lives of young people within Charleston, SC. This vision can be abbreviated as 4Es, where each of the four Es will help achieve the program’s overall goal appropriately. The middle and high school learners will be engaged to determine their dreams and encouraged to work towards them.

The program will involve experienced professionals from Charleston, SC, to ensure that every child in the middle and high school levels succeeds academically and pursue their dreams.

Value Statement

The work of this program will be informed and guided by the following commitments and beliefs:

• Participation. The program initiators recognize the significance of the contributions of people from all facets of life within communities and organizations. This being an initiative by a youth for young people, the contribution by the targeted group will be highly appreciated.
• Diversity. Value for diversity and commitment to equality is among the top guiding principles for this program. In this case, it means diversity of thought, experience, and perspective. This value helps ensure that learners are effectively exposed to the world around them and the realities of the people they will interact with in after-school life.
• Inclusiveness. The program intends to make sure that learners have the opportunity to be included in educational and social activities. Achieving this is basic fairness and a fundamental part of child development.

Organization History and Profile

The idea to start this initiative came in the being in May 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak, and most school-going young people had abandoned their academic work. The closures of schools due to COVID-19 brought significant disruptions to education. Most institutions shifted to the online mode, causing a major change in the delivery and reception of the education system. This new model has been characterized by lower concentration, hence poor overall performance compared to traditional or physical learning. This program will help in developing and enhancing strategies that have a positive growth curve in the performance of middle and high school learners. The adoption and implementation of these strategies through the provision of support materials and skills for their capacity building will help students achieve their career and life goals.

Summary of Core Strategies

The core strategy is the inclusion of peers and families to achieve the program’s goals, mission, vision, and core values. The plan appreciates the significance of family members in ensuring that all students acquire learning opportunities to develop and show their careers, modern workshop, and interest. Parents and guardians will be asked to say what they are willing to do to support their children, both at home and at school.

The program will also base its operations on the inquiry-based learning method. This active learning technique starts by posing problems, questions, or scenarios, rather than simply portraying a smooth path to knowledge or presenting established facts (Khalaf et al., 2018). A facilitator will be assisting the process, and learners will identify and research issues and questions to develop their knowledge or solutions. The program will include problem-based learning commonly used in small-scale investigations and projects, as well as research.

Program Goals and Objectives

The primary goal of this program is to offer the best academic support to middle and high school learners in Charleston, SC. The program will offer opportunities that permit all students to establish and develop talent, career, and interest through demonstration and mentorship. The initiative’s main objective is to revitalize the reading culture and interest in new knowledge among the learners. The initiative also intends to ensure that students succeed in their high school studies and proceed to colleges and universities to pursue their careers. These goals and objectives will be attained by effectively aligning available resources to maximize the academic potential of the target group.

Financial, Administrative, and Governance goals and objectives

This organization intends to be financially stable through the support of well-wishers and local authorities. The organization will draft a compressive appeal for financial support to enable it to achieve its goals and objective. This initiative is designed to operate on lean governance and administrative structure to minimize recurrent expenditure and channel the available resources to the primary objectives. This lean organizational structure focuses on improving efficiency by eliminating waste and favoring process standardization to improve efficiency.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths	Weaknesses	Opportunities	Threats
Positive feedback from the target group	Bureaucracies in obtaining a permit to operate	Availability of social media platform to spread the word and mobilize participants	Competition from established institutions
High population of middle and high school learners in the county	Reluctance among some parents to support the program	Involvement of the creative minds of the youths	Invention of better ideas and models that can render the current one redundant

Membership of Board and Planning Committee

1. Chairperson.
2. Vice chairperson.
3. Supervisor/project coordinator.
4. Organizing secretary/record keeper.
5. Treasurer/inventory keeper.
6. Members/teacher/parents/community.

Long-Range Budget projections and Development Plan

Long-term budget forecasts according to the plan are seen as easily implemented since this program is expected to be a success among the population. In view of this, it can be concluded that the planned budget will not need additional costs. However, when implementing the development plan, it is still necessary to take into account such risks as the refusal of financing from any of the interested parties. In this case, it is important to develop and identify alternative sources of budgeting to avoid negative consequences.

Reference

Khalaf, B. K., Zin, M., & Bt, Z. (2018). Traditional and Inquiry-Based Learning Pedagogy: A Systematic Critical Review. International Journal of Instruction, 11(4), 545-564. Web.