Sussex Tech School District looks for input for strategic plan

SUSSEX COUNTY, Del. – Sussex Tech School District is looking for locals to give them feedback and suggestions for a plan that will have a big impact on students and staff. This plan has been crafted for several months with input from the community, but the district wants to stress that there is still time to make your voice heard.

Superintendent Stephen Guthrie stresses the importance of including the community, saying they have a, “good way of looking at things to say you missed this, or you missed that.”

This is the district’s first strategic plan in 15 years, and it’s seen as part of a general cleanup for its first-year superintendent, designed to be the school district’s guideline moving forward.

First and foremost on the list of goals is to invest more time and resources into getting students more work-based training.

“It’s all designed to make the students employable in those tech areas when they leave us,” said Guthrie.

Also high on the priority list is keeping up with current technology, and the district says it will go as far as allocating more funding to meet this goal to give students a taste of their future professional environment.

“I want to ensure that we’re providing a space that’s industry standard as well. If we’re going to teach students in collision repair, we want to make sure that they’re going to use the same tools in our collision repair that they would use in the private sector,” said Guthrie.

Other keys to the draft include hiring a more high-quality workforce, as well as acknowledging, respecting and valuing diversity, and engaging the school community.

Community input, like more focus on vocational learning, has been put into the plan. Input has also come in from the district’s Community Advisory Committee, Teacher’s Advisory Committee and Board of Education.

It’s been refreshing for faculty members to feel part of the process.

“The simple fact that we’re including folks in the building in that strategic plan process, it goes a long way to building all the buy in to that strategic plan,” said criminal justice teacher Deangello Eley.

Officials say this is part of the effort to become more transparent with the community, a growing concern in recent years.

“The past issues that happened here, we became tainted. This is also an attempt to reach out to the community to say we’re changing,” Guthrie affirmed.

The final plan will be discussed and voted on at Sussex Tech’s June 10 meeting. If passed, the plan will go into effect July 1. Guthrie says the plan is to perform annual updates, and to review the progress made under the blueprint in 2022 with students who are incoming freshmen, parents and faculty.

You can find the draft plan for Sussex County here. You can also leave feedback for the strategic plan as it’s crafted now.