Establishing clarity and coherence around our services.

• Analyze what we do, why we do it, and how we know if we are successful
• Develop departmental themes and goals with accountability structures

Increasing the supports available to parents and caregivers.

• Strengthen communication with families, with differentiating frequency based on students’ needs
• Help each family develop skills for supporting their student
• Provide systems and structures to assist families in supporting their students’ work within the home
• Enhance the Ivy Street community supports for families
• Reduce family isolation by building support structures and connection opportunities

Supporting our students in building healthy relationships with their bodies and food.

• Enhance student supports around food and nutrition via culinary team collaboration, consult with nutritionist, and increased education around nutrition and health
• Sharpen system for managing student education around medications and independence in their medication management
• Strengthen system for developing student medical planning skills
• Systematically increase learning for students around safe adults and self-advocacy

Refining our systems and processes.

• Improve coherence around how we provide treatment within the day and evening programs
• Provide consistency in staffing by focusing on proactive and anticipatory hiring 
• Increase organization around communication practices

Developing a clear vision around how students learn best at our school.

• Hold supportive professional development for teachers, including a structure of feedback, formal and informal observations, and a New Teacher Support and Mentorship program
• Tighten an instructional vision and implement project-based learning
• Hire a Learning Design Coordinator to help realize global vision
• Develop a program model for each classroom that delivers on our pedagogical approach and embeds transition and vocational skills
• Deepen enrichment opportunities for students during the day and after school
• Create a scope and sequence for instruction, including an academic calendar with marking periods and a vacation schedule, and an enhanced summer program

Strengthening how our professionals learn.

• Move away from supervision and into coaching
• Enhance supervision/coaching for all staff by providing structure for individual, group, and department meetings, embedding learning in all meetings, and communicating adult peer feedback as a parallel process for students
• Create structured adult learning by performing a full analysis of current learning methods and developing differentiated learning

Communicating our work to the world.

• Create coherent vision, strategy and expectations around social media and marketing
• Establish clear and unified messaging for all communications

Reviewing the process for how students get to Ivy Street.

• Create a rubric to standardize the admissions process
• Provide structured processes and resources to support students and families in a positive transition into the school
• Establish clear communication around our school’s scope and model for prospective families
• Collect data to help inform the process moving forward

Building a stronger HR function.

• Develop advanced recruitment strategy and 21st century hiring process
• Implement a cohort-style support structure for new staff in their first months
• Use data to understand staffing patterns and develop staffing solutions
• Launch an orientation that matches our values and mission for excellence

Expanding our reach to extend beyond the school.

• Promote and elevate Skills For Life and examine how the program’s services can be better incorporated into the school
• Reorganize organizational structure to help realize our bigger goals
• Create community programming to engage additional youth and expand peer-to-peer interactions
• Provide training on our areas of expertise to families, both within our community and externally
• Establish ourselves as thought leaders in the special education and disability community
• Cultivate new opportunities to expand our residential program
• Deepen our expertise and supports for supporting transgender, gender non-conforming and gender diverse youth