PERRYSBURG — The school board has started discussions for the new strategic planning process, the first since the release of the January 2017 release of the Vision 2020 Strategic Plan.

During Tuesday’s workshop meeting, there was considerable dicussion about when the process should start. It was generally agreed that a number of funding related issues would need to be decided prior to the Core Team meeting.

“I think that there are a lot of streams that will flow into this process, so we talk about academics, we talked about the state report card at the last meeting. We know that there are other kinds of indicators and we have the financial responsibilities we have, with facilities and operations,” Superintendent Tom Hosler said.

Treasurer Randy Drewyor said that there are expected to be recommendations coming in early January regarding facilities, which could involve the levies and a possible bond issue.

Board President Eric Benington laid out the levies coming up for discussion.

“We’re going to be taking a look at the permanent improvement levy, talk about the timing of some other levies that are expiring and what the best levy options are for timing and amounts,” Benington said.

The board has contracted with Ohio School Boards Association representative Cheryl Ryan to get the process moving. She presented a general template for the process and got the board members to put together dates for meetings of the Design and Core teams.

The first draft of the Core Team member invitation letter laid out the goal for the plan, as a road-map for decision-making, continued school improvement and student success over the next several years.

The previous plan had a Core Team of 30, which included school board members, employees and community members. They developed a vision, with goals and objectives for future of the school district that would last up to five years.

“I think it did really well,” Benington said. “The results are in the state report card, the strong state report card we just had, the fact that Perrysburg is a destination district, through the growth that it’s had and the levy support that we have gotten. All of them show that the strategic plan we put in place back in 2017 has been effective for the community and the district.”

The first meeting with the Design Team is set for the evenings of Dec. 13, with Core Team meetings on Jan. 24, Feb. 23, March 23 and April 25.

“We’re going to try to take a four to five-year look at the direction we want the district to go to, based off the work we did in 2015 and 2016, for the Vision 2020 Strategic Plan,” Benington said. “It was designed to get us through 2020, and we’ve been running that same playbook for the last two years, but … it’s starting to sunset.”

The four Core Team meetings would be oriented, in order, around shared vision, information gathering priorities and planning and a move to action at the the final meeting.

Part of the strategic planning process will include a survey.

Ryan said that some boards prefer to have the survey prior to the start of the process, but others like to have it toward the end.

It was pointed out that Perrysburg Schools already does an annual survey, which typically takes place in April, but board members agreed that the years of annual results would be referenced. No decision was made on when a survey specifically covering strategic planning issues might take place.