Yes We Can History

YES WE CAN: Building A Blueprint for Equity and Excellence in Mobile's Schools

Five years of progress has taken place in the Mobile County Public School System since the 2001 tax vote. Now its time to share the data and stories with the communities which contributed to the PASSport to Excellece strategic plan. Starting September 28, 2006, 35 community meetings took place for seven consecutive Thursdays throughout Mobile County. These meetings were intended for the community to take a well deserved 'victory lap' as well as voice what their concerns are and how they think the district should move forward.

YWC HISTORY

On Wed. evening, Feb. 12, 2003, over 130 citizens from throughout Mobile County (including educators, parents, business and community leaders, students, and higher education officials) came together to launch an historic undertaking - the creation of a genuinely student-centered, community-driven long-range plan for the Mobile County Public Schools.

Bolstered by the new, federal "No Child Left Behind" law and motivated in large part by the YES WE CAN Community Agreement, the Mobile County School Board has joined forces with the Mobile Area Education Foundation and its growing YES WE CAN school reform coalition to develop an unprecedented performance-based strategic plan for our school district. In doing so, school board members are underscoring a shared commitment to making student achievement and organizational accountability their top priorities.

The YES WE CAN Community Agreement - representing the ideas and aspirations of more than 1,400 citizens from throughout Mobile County who participated in a YES WE CAN Community Conversation over the past year - was officially presented to the school board in late October 2002. Following a subsequent round of public meetings to review the Agreement and in direct response to the stated hopes and concerns of all YES WE CAN participants, work has now begun on the most sweeping school improvement effort ever initiated in our community.

Led by Dr. Cheryl Wilhoyte, a former school superintendent and an examiner and performance coach for the Baldrige National Quality Program, school district and YES WE CAN leaders teamed up initially back in December 2002 to consider how to begin addressing each of the priority issues identified in the YES WE CAN Community Agreement. Those 6 areas of expectation include Communications, Equity, Governance, Parental and Community Involvement, Student Achievement and Teacher Quality.

Now the PASSport to Excellence, a full-scale strategic planning process is under way integrating the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence with the YES WE CAN Community Agreement priorities. As every individual gathered in the Davidson High auditorium on Feb. 12th can attest, the work is extremely challenging and thought provoking. In fact, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) - like most regional accrediting agencies throughout the nation - has designated the Baldrige Quality standards as the most rigorous and effective model for reshaping educational organizations to create high performance results.

Following an intense series of work sessions over the next few months, a completed comprehensive plan for the school district will be released to the public by the end of May 2003 - a blueprint for the future of our schools developed expressly around the needs identified by Mobile County citizens in the YWC Community Agreement.

Your continued interest and support are crucial to the long-term success of this work. Please review our YWC Community Agreement in its entirety and watch for more updates from YES WE CAN. Help us share with your friends and neighbors the good news about what's happening in our public schools and throughout our Mobile County community.