BRUNSWICK COUNTY, N.C. (WECT) – The Brunswick County Board of Education on July 9 approved the 2024-2029 strategic plan for the district.

Strategic priorities for the plan are student success, student services, community engagement, talent development and effective and efficient operations.

Student Success

By 2029, the district wants all of its schools to meet or exceed growth, compared to about 42 percent of schools that meet or exceed growth as of the most recent measure. To make this happen, the district plans on adopting core curricula for all state-tested subjects in K-12, provide professional development for new curricula, implement systematic classroom walkthroughs to monitor the quality of instruction and give feedback and more.

In the next five years, the district also wants 100 percent of its students to have access to work-based learning opportunities. For this, the district plans to audit current Career and Technical Education program enrollment, require professional development for counselors and teachers on teaching students about CTE pathways, maximizing the use of academic career planning tools and increasing the number of work-based learning opportunities available.

Student Services

The district wants every student to have access to a multi-tiered system of support by 2029. BCS’ plan says it plans to provide professional development on Mental Health First Aid and connecting every student to a caring adult and make sure mental health needs are met with support. Leaders also want less instructional time lost due to disciplinary issues and for each school counseling program to implement best practices with a BCS-developed rubric by the end of the 2028-2029 school year.

The plan aims to decrease chronic absenteeism from 32 percent to 5 percent, decrease threat assessment and discipline threats from 118 to around 81 and decreasing the short-term suspensions from 7897 to around 5804.

Community Engagement

On this point, the district aims to get more internships, apprenticeships and partnerships with Brunswick Community College and the UNC System.

Metrics for this include increasing the number of internships, pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships from six to 26 by 2029, increasing businesses offering internship from 0 to 30 and increasing College and Career Promise participation from 37 percent to 48 percent.

Talent Development

To help gain and keep talented staff, BCS wants to implement a formal annual recruitment and retention plan, providing a competitive salary, develop a grow-your-own program to promote a local employee pipeline and conducting a salary study to find a competitive pay plan. The district wants to make a program to support beginning teachers and offer quarterly professional development sessions to new teachers.

Metrics include increasing the percent of certified positions filled from 89 percent to 100 percent, increasing the number of positions filled from 93 percent to 100 percent and increase the grow-your-own program hires from none at all to 10. As for the beginning teacher program, the district hopes to bring retention rates for beginning teachers from 96 percent to 100 percent.

Additionally, BCS wants to implement a program to recognize and reward high-performing staff via professional development, a supportive workplace culture and working conditions, making a growth track for classified employees and implementing a local working conditions survey. The plan outlines a hope to implement practices that protect employees’ personal time and planning periods.

For metrics, the school wants to increase retention rates from 86 percent to 100 percent and local survey completions from none at all to around 70 percent.

Effective and Efficient Operations

The district wants to make sure all schools are secure and welcoming environments by implementing modern financial systems to support efficient reporting, developing facility plans for development and new construction, ensure operations functions with cost-effective measures and making all areas of facilities meet requirements like fire codes, state insurance inspections and safety and handicap requirements.

Metrics include keeping the number of financial audits with findings at 0 and increasing the school’s transportation efficiency rating from 88 to 94.

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