Salem School District believes that “Learning thrives in a positive, safe, caring, and respectful environment for children and adults” (Salem School District Belief Statements). In order to gather information about our students’ perceptions of their learning environment to help guide the district’s Strategic Planning process, a voluntary Climate Survey will be sent to students in 3rd-8th grades.

We want to thank all of our Salem community members, parents/grandparents, board members, staff and students who were a part of our Strategic Planning Community Event on 10/13/2022. The group enjoyed dinner from Subway in Paddock Lake and then rotated through three presentations focusing on our Academic Data, Learning and Working Environment, and Salem Resources: Financial, Facilities, and Technology. We took a look at where our district is now, and shared thoughts on Salem's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT Analysis). It was a valuable evening of information that will greatly help our team as we look at Salem's Vision for the future at our next meeting in November!

The question: Where is the District now?

● Academic Data: Growth & Achievement - View the PDF Presentation Here!

● Learning and Working Environment: Organizational Health and Climate - View the PDF Presentation Here!

● Resources: Financial, Facilities and Technology - View the PDF Presentation Here!

Our Collective Agreements

In order to help us prioritize areas that we'd like to focus on as a team, we asked all strategic planning committee members to rank their top 3 SWOT priorities within the areas of  1) Student Growth and Achievement, 2) Learning and Working Environment, and 3) Resources: Financial, Facilities, and Technology through a survey that was sent to each member. During our meeting we reviewed the top Strengths and Opportunities from the SWOT results, listened to a "Vision of a Salem Graduate" speech given by Lydia, a former Salem student, and created word clouds to visualize our Vision for Salem students. We also discussed our findings from the Five Levers to Improve Learning book.

The question: Where do we want the District to go?

Vision/Inspiration Word Clouds

Our Strategic Planning Team consisted of 35 members.  Invitations were sent to all stakeholders- community partnerships, families, students (current and past), and staff. Five meetings were held over the course of 6 months.  One of these meetings was open to the entire Salem community to help identify our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.  Through the work of our Strategic Planning Team, we were able to develop and write a new Mission and Vision for Salem School.

Pictured here are Bruno Gonzalez, Salem 8th Grade Student, and Karen Krolow, Salem Staff Member, presenting the Strategic Plan to our Salem School Board.

We are excited to announce the launch of our new ECRISS Dashboard for Salem School.  This dashboard allows all stakeholders to view the District's progress toward each of our goals.

Salem School Strategic Dashboard

On Monday evening, April 8th, 2024, we welcomed our Strategic Planning Committee back to Salem for a "Year in Review" event! Members of the committee who worked on developing Salem's Strategic Plan last year got to visit some of our newly renovated spaces and see the plan in action! Stops on the tour included the Project Lead the Way classroom where they learned about new electives, OTUS, and our course guide. They observed students working on robots for our upcoming STEAM event on April 18th, as well as visited our ESports Lounge and the new Discovery Lab to hear more about our attendance, PBIS and Special Education programs. We are excited to continue building for our future here at Salem!