“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”

1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Dr. Wayman Marseille, Superintendent of the Wallingford Swarthmore School District (WSSD), started his talk by saying the shortest distance between two people is a story. Therefore, the first part of his talk was his story. Dr. Marseille was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, one of ten children. His family moved to the Princeton, NJ, when he was a child. His father worked as a janitor. Although his family was relatively poor, Dr. Marseille benefited from the good Princeton public schools. Like most adults, Dr. Marseille looks back on high school with strong positive and negative feelings. He remembers being bullied by other black students. He also fondly remembers Ms. Mackey, his track coach. He said she became his mentor. She coached him to the N.J. state championship in the hurdles. After high school, Dr. Marseille attended Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he majored in finance and accounting. His goal was to be a stock broker and make a lot of money. He soon became disillusioned with the cut throat atmosphere of finance, and decided to become a teacher.
He returned to Princeton High School as a coach. After obtaining a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Marseille became a school administrator. Increasingly responsible jobs led him to WSSD.
Dr. Marseille invited us to take part in development of the WSSD Strategic Plan. The next article provides some details of the plan, taken from the WSSD website.
Dr. Marseille told us that when members of the African tribe, the Masai, greet each other, they do not say “how are you”. Rather, they say “Kasseria Ingera”, which means “how are the children”. If the reply is “the children are well”, then all is good. Dr. Marseille invited us to measure how we are by measuring how are the children.

From Dr. Marselles introduction to the Strategic Plan website:
In 2022, in collaboration with every member of our community and through a partnership with Bloom Planning Consultants, we launched our Strategic Planning process. The first phase of this process, the Discovery Phase, draws on the voices of our entire community. During the course of last year, we heard your voices through individual and group meetings, surveys, interviews, and town halls. Through the three in-depth audits: curriculum, communications, and equity, we received 4,430 surveys, reviewed more than 700 documents and artifacts, conducted over 120 classroom visits, and held approximately 200 focus groups and interviews. The collection of community feedback and data enabled us to connect common threads and glean a collective voice around key focus areas. The Strategic Plan is informed further by the 2022-2025 Comprehensive Plan and the Special Education Plan.
As a result, four focus areas have emerged:

• Teaching, Learning, & Innovation
• Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging
• Culture, Community, and Communications
• Operations & Finance

• Focus Area : Teaching, Learning & Innovation
  • Clearly defined Learning Goals
  • Common Formative and Summative assessments
  • Data-informed practices
  • Strategic Planning/Learning journeys & Innovation

• Focus Area: Equity, Inclusion and Belonging
  • To eliminate the historical and systemic practices, programs, protocols and policies that continue to marginalize underrepresented groups
  • To strengthen developmental experiences, skills and mindsets for all students to foster a sense of agency and integrated identities.

• Focus Area: Culture, Community and Communications
  • Community forums and town halls
  • Building & Departmental websites
  • Parents/Guardians community participation and engagement

• Focus Area: Operations & Finance
  • Safety & Security
  • Athletic facilities/fields/ restrooms/Learning spaces/Sustainability
  • Cost benefit analysis prioritizing needs /Performance-based practices