Contest, Game Highlight Women’s Accomplishments Through the Ages

What better way to highlight the accomplishments of women through the ages in honor of Women’s History Month than by holding a contest for staff members designed to increase their awareness of these often little-known contributions? That’s exactly what the District’s Diversity and Cultural Outreach Department (DCOD) decided to do recently.

" Women,

Diversity and Cultural Outreach Community Liaison Nancy Weintraub (R) presents a gift certificate to contest winner Lisa Spince.

throughout the world and through the ages, have accomplished some pretty remarkable things that don’t appear in our history books,” explained Nancy Weintraub, Community Liaison for the DCOD. In years past, the department designed a matching game that was distributed to schools and department heads. Many schools chose to copy the game and use it as a learning tool for their students, who – in order to match the woman with the accomplishment correctly – had to conduct research and use their reading and critical thinking skills.

“ This year, we added a contest component to the game, enabling staff members to compete for a restaurant gift certificate,” explained Ms. Weintraub. Lisa Spince, Supervisor of Pupil Transportation/West Central in Davie, was the first person to submit her answers and achieve a 100% score on the game.

“ We’re thrilled that this game – and the contest as well – have been so well-received,” said Ms. Weintraub. “We believe the information we’ve imparted helps students from all backgrounds and cultural heritages to realize that a person from their very own heritage may very well have accomplished something that has had a profound and lasting affect through history. We hope this knowledge will inspire them to achieve greatness, as well.”

Revised Strategic Plan Coming Soon

Every day, employees of the Broward School District come to work ready to face a multitude of never ending challenges and opportunities. As in many businesses, these day-to-day operational challenges often become the main focus for "getting the job done." But, long-range strategic planning has to set the course for any large complex enterprise to ensure that all employees are "in sync" with a common mission, shared goals and specific measurable objectives. In other words, the day-to-day work must be aligned along a common path so that individual efforts are linked to shared priorities.

The written expression of our common path is the Broward School District Strategic Plan. In 2000, the School Board adopted a five-year strategic plan containing a mission statement, four major goals and 10 specific objectives. Currently, that strategic plan is being revised to reflect a number of important new challenges faced by the District. Changes in both federal and state law and changes in the Department of Education (DOE) rule assigning letter grades to schools based on student performance have an impact on the Strategic Plan objectives adopted in 2000. For example, the recent approval of the class size amendment by Florida voters will have a definite impact on the District's efforts to reduce the number of children in each class. Other major changes are the result of the new federal law referred to as the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) legislation. The complex rules and regulations in the NCLB mandate certain new requirements for teacher and paraprofessional certification standards in all schools. Likewise, the DOE has made a number of changes in how schools receive their performance grade based on student FCAT scores. All of these new laws and rules and other recurring local challenges are priorities in the draft revised strategic plan.

This process has involved many focus groups giving input on the language to be used in each revised or, in some cases, new objective. The current draft of the revised plan has 12 objectives instead of 10 and a number of the objectives now refer to the importance of integrated technology and best business practices so that our limited resources can be used more effectively. Every employee should know the mission of the District and how the goals and objectives fit within their job responsibilities. Watch for the revised plan later this summer. If you would like more information on the revisions or the process, call Judy Zinn, Director of Strategic Planning, at (954)712-1547.