Introduction

In order to develop the vision for your school and district, you must understand the perceived needs of the various stakeholders in the school and community. It is critical that you engage the stakeholders in assessing the gap that exists between the current situation and the desired state for your school. It is also important that you keep the stakeholders well informed throughout the planning process such as sharing information on the current situation of the school, identified needs, the vision, mission and objectives of the plan, etc. Your ongoing communication with the stakeholders through all aspects of the planning process is critical to its success. To assure effective and ongoing communication, it is helpful for your team to develop a plan to communicate with important stakeholder groups and the general public.

As you read, keep these guiding questions in mind:

• Who are the major stakeholders in the district?
• What are their interests (political, economic, personal) in the district?
• How will you sample the stakeholders?
• How will you communicate with the stakeholders and others?

Every school and community has important strengths it can draw upon to achieve its technology vision. Solid technology planning recognizes these strengths: experienced and trained advocates, highly motivated community members, existing hardware and software, and funding and partnering opportunities. Most schools have areas in which they would like to be stronger. [McNabb, et al - Technology Connections for School Improvement]. To conduct a comprehensive needs assessment of how technology should address the important learning goals in your school and community, the technology planning committee must gather data from two major sources.

One source of information is the school community itself. All stakeholders will have important information to give the planning committee on how and where technology can increase or improve learning within the school and the community. What are the ways that technology can improve the act of teaching and learning in Mustang ISD? How can each member of the school community become involved in the process of increasing student achievement? It is important to get the input from all stakeholders to help build buy-in for the technology plan. It is also important to involve stakeholders early on in the process because these same stakeholders will ultimately provide funds for technology through their local taxes, through the sale of bonds, and through their commitment to the district.

Another important source of information is research. What information do you have about student achievement? What is the school or district's vision for learning? What information is available regarding the status of technology for the school or district? What are the best practices? What are the standards for hardware, software, and professional development? These data provide the committee with important information about where we are now. This will be an important part of the plan as we seek to tie together a set of systems, which will allow Mustang ISD to strive toward its vision for its students.