SPANISH FORT, Ala. — With classes resuming in less than six weeks, Baldwin County Public Schools will already have several new initiatives in place before that first bell rings.

In addition to the naming of an inaugural board of directors for the broader Baldwin County Education Coalition, system spokesman Terry Wilhite said “communication improvements and initiatives” outlined in the evolving co-owned strategic plan will begin prior to the new school year.

The plan, borne of the Yes We Can Baldwin movement, is intended to improve the delivery, quality and impact of public education by involving not just parents and educators but business interests and the community-at-large in the systematic overhaul. A revised version of the plan that incorporates community feedback will be presented to the Baldwin County Board of Education during its Aug. 16 work session, and organizers anticipate a vote regarding its adoption later that week.

Elementary Executive Principal Suellen Brazil, who has led the school system’s planning team and served as the district’s chief liaison to the community throughout the plan’s development, said the benefits to students and the entire county’s quality of life will be evident for “years to come.”

“We’ve been excited with the comprehensive collaboration between our school district and Baldwin County communities and very pleased to gain invaluable feedback provided from the draft of the proposed plan. We certainly look forward to working hand-in-hand to meet the expectations outlined in our co-owned strategic plan,” Brazil said.

And Yes We Can Baldwin spokesperson Denise ‘Oliveira said results of that collaboration are already evident in the seating of the coalition’s founding board of directors and the commissioning by Superintendent Alan Lee of an efficiency study being conducted currently by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama.

“Both of those action steps were listed as early objectives to be accomplished, and the coalition will also be conducting our first meetings with our principals' and teachers’ advisory groups in July,” she said.

Wilhite said benchmarks and target dates for the action steps outlined in the plan are being finalized now, and the entire process will remain transparent.

“As the plan unfolds and the accountability begins, reports to the community will be regularly supplied. Implementation of the plan will begin as soon as it is approved by the board, and by co-owned we mean that there will be parts of the plan the district is responsible for and parts the community is responsible for,” he said.

Changes should be apparent as early as the first week of school, D’Oliveira said.

“Parents will be able to see just how well the students in their child's school are doing when they return to campus in the fall using the ‘data boards’ that will be posted detailing achievement test scores from this past spring,” she said.

In addition, the coalition will work toward holding a countywide education summit in October that will “provide more insight into where we are and where we want to go,” and a virtual data warehouse will be constructed that allows for the free exchange of information from tracking system to tracking system.

“This is a much-needed tool that will provide new ways for the schools to be accountable and cost-effective,” D’Oliveira said.

Wilhite said the online feedback system used to cull response to the draft proposal’s debut in May worked “extremely well” with parents, teachers, students and community residents offering myriad suggestions for streamlining the process.

“A few (respondents) thought some areas should be beefed up, while others asked if maybe some parts of the plan might be too challenging, but everyone agreed that the plan is much needed and is a step in the right direction” Wilhite said, noting more than 80 comments were received.

Excitement is brewing among proponents, however, at some of the real-world applications for the plan that are already coming into focus, such as the role the plan can have in the implementation of Lee’s proposed “Digital Renaissance,” a program that would put laptops in the hands of all fourth- through 12th-graders.

Wilhite said there’s no question the collective Baldwin County community demands more cutting-edge educational delivery methods that better prepare students to graduate equipped to compete on a global scale.

“The community said it expects more relevance – students from K-12 must have curriculum and resources that prepare them for a 21st-century life and career. The community also said it has higher expectations than has been delivered to date. The conversations also bore out the fact that we must find ways to better meet the learning needs of individual students and that pursuing 21st-century learning needs to be done with urgency,” Wilhite said. “The Digital Renaissance precisely addresses every one of those objectives. It’s about empowering students with an Apple laptop that they can use in class and at home, but the magic isn’t in the computer; it’s in the way that instruction is delivered using digital resources. It’s the beginning of a 21st-century learning experience that will continue to evolve.”

D’Oliveira said she has no doubt the Digital Renaissance could “revolutionize” instruction while providing “relevant, meaningful” ways to engage and excite students in the learning process.

“If the system can find the means to fund the initiative, we will be putting the whole wide world into the hands of every child in grades 4-12 through the use of a personal laptop throughout the school year. Where it's been done in other places, test scores and graduation rates have risen dramatically and behavior problems have nearly disappeared. We commit in the plan to work together for 21st-century schools. This is the most promising means of getting there that we've ever considered in this community,” she said.