Clerc Center Strategic Plan 2020
The Clerc Center Strategic plan 2020 (CCSP 2020) focuses on its national service and demonstration school activities for the upcoming five-year period. The national service portion of the plan supports professionals and parents of deaf and hard of hearing students from birth through high school, in accordance with the Education of the Deaf Act (EDA), the Clerc Center’s guiding federal legislation. The national service goal focuses on three priority areas identified during the Clerc Center’s national Priority Setting Meeting that took place in February 2013 on the Gallaudet University campus in Washington, DC.
The process to focus each priority area, develop the objectives, and select the strategies that the Clerc center will undertake over the next five years was based on input and information from a number of national sources. These included dialogue during the national Priority setting Meeting; collection and analysis of public input from 2010-2012, published as Critical Needs of Students Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: A Public Input Summary; evaluation feedback on select trainings and products; and current research, practice, and resources in the priority areas. The strategies were carefully selected based on their potential impact in each priority area as well as on the Clerc Center’s ability to complete them with resources available. The completed strategic plan was carefully reviewed to ensure alignment among the Clerc Center mission, the national service goal and related objectives, the strategies, and compliance with the EDA.
Along with its national service responsibilities, the Clerc Center supports two demonstrations schools: Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES) and the Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD). These schools have joint accreditation by the Middle States Association (MSA) and the Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf (CEASD). In 2010, as part of the process to commence the reaccreditation cycle, the schools began an 18-month self-study process. Excellence by Design (EBD), a strategic planning accreditation protocol, was chosen for its focus on student achievement as well as for the organizational capacity to support that achievement. Through the EBD process, the schools identified two student achievement goals and one organizational capacity goal with related objectives and measurable annual targets. Action plans were developed for each goal area, and work on the strategies in those plans began in 2012.
A. National Service Goals
The Clerc Center supports professionals and families through the dissemination of resources, training, and evidence-based information in the areas of professional development, family-school partnerships, and national collaborations to meet the linguistic, educational, and social-emotional needs of deaf and hard of hearing children from birth through high school.
Priority Areas
- Professional Development – Support the needs of professionals by addressing gaps in their knowledge and facilitating the growth of necessary skills to meet the linguistic, academic, and social-emotional development and achievement of deaf and hard of hearing children from birth to 21 years of age.
- Family-School/Agency Partnerships – Promote the use of proactive partnerships between families and professionals at schools and/or in programs to effectively meet the linguistic, educational, and social-emotional needs of deaf and hard of hearing children from birth to 21 years of age.
- Collaboration – Facilitate the recognition that productive collaborations among organizations at the national and state level are essential to effectively meet the linguistic, educational, and social-emotional needs of deaf and hard of hearing children from birth to 21 years of age.
B. Demonstration School Goals
Implement teaching and learning practices and promote a school climate that maximizes the academic potential of deaf or hard of hearing students in preparation for graduation and transition to postsecondary education and/or the workplace.
Priority Areas
- Reading and Writing (on hold pending change of assessments)
- Math (on hold pending change of assessments)
- School Climate
