FARGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Educating and Empowering All Students to Succeed
Strategy Map
The Strategy Map is a visual representation to help FPS remain focused on the Results of the Strategic Plan as a learning organization and contextualize the role of education in the lives of students.
Uriel Brofenbrenner’s System Ecological Theory guides the work in Fargo Public Schools and advocates for meeting the needs of the whole child. System’s Ecological Theory looks at a child’s development within the context of the system of relationships that form their environment. In Brofenbrenner’s model, the child is at the center of a five-layer system wherein each layer symbolizes a different perspective of the environment and each having an influence on a child’s growth and development (Keenan, Evans, 2009). The theory views child development as a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment, from immediate settings of family and school to broad cultural values, laws, and customs experienced in community (Ryan, 2001).
Image Source: (Keenan, Evans, 2009)
Consequently, the results of the school system are a product of multiple individual variables coming together and not indicative of any one action or metric at a specified time. As a learning organization, FPS recognizes that the work of our District is interconnected and consists of multiple factors impacting child development.
Therefore, it is important to recognize the measures of success and progress utilized in the organization, so we can continue to improve in our outcomes for the students we serve. This includes balancing the need for employees to be reflective of the Formative Information we collect to improve practices while being able to triangulate the Formative Information to maintain focus on the Results we seek.
Fargo Public Schools defines success in multiple ways:
- The utilization of Formative Information on an ongoing basis for reflection and improvement of practices by all staff.
- Meeting, sustaining, and creating new baseline Strategic Plan Standards utilized to provide desired educational experiences.
- Achieving or making reasonable progress towards the Results identified in the Fargo Public Schools Strategic Plan.
Fargo Public Schools recognizes that fulfillment of the district’s mission requires success in all three areas listed above. However, the District does not distribute the focus of these three measurements of success equally. Fargo Public Schools’ primary focus and leading factors for decision-making is achieving or making reasonable progress towards the Results.
The following graphic visualizes this concept:
