Multi-Year Strategic Plan

On behalf of HWDSB’s Board of Trustees and Executive Council, we are thrilled to celebrate the launch of HWDSB’s new Multi-Year Strategic Plan (MYSP) for 2023 to 2028!

As part of this launch, we are also excited to share our new tagline for the duration of this plan: Be You. Be Excellent. These efforts have been supported with a new series of images featuring HWDSB students as their authentic selves.

Thank you to the students, staff, families and community members who shared their input to help build the mission, values and strategic directions for our school board. Together, you helped build a path forward through:

• 1 Public Meeting with 100+ Participants
• 5 Youth-led Pop-ups
• 6 Community Pop-ups
• 7 Advisory Groups and Student Leadership Workshops
• 43 Interviews
• 3000 Survey Responses

With your input, we created a 5-year plan for HWDSB with a powerful mission: To ensure that every student experiences a sense of belonging and engages in dynamic learning to reach their potential and build their own future.

Our mission is underpinned by HWDSB’s new guiding values – Compassion, Dignity, Trust and Joy. And now, we can celebrate the official launch of our new Strategic Directions:

• Upholding Human Rights, Safety & Well-Being
• Providing Equitable Quality Education
• Collaborating with Students, Families & Communities
• Building a Sustainable Education System
• Reinforcing Indigenous Educational Wellness & Reconciliation

As HWDSB students move through the diverse and unique parts of their lives, this Multi-Year Strategic Plan will support them inside classrooms and beyond. We are fostering spaces where students can be themselves and do excellent things because they are immersed in purposeful learning experiences facilitated by dedicated educators.

We could not have done this without your enthusiasm and participation.

Thank you for helping us to uphold the mission, values and strategic directions over the next five years of this MYSP. We are grateful for your dedication to ensuring all students feel safe, welcome, and included at school.

Sincerely,

Maria Felix Miller
Chair of the Board

Sheryl Robinson Petrazzini
Director of Education

We will support all students and staff to feel safe and secure in our classrooms and school communities.

We will offer equitable quality educational opportunities to improve student engagement, learning and achievement for future-readiness.

We will build reciprocal relationships and partnerships to enhance access and engagement for students, families, and communities.

We will adapt to a rapidly changing world through responsible fiscal management, investing equitably in accessible and sustainable facilities, and supporting a robust workforce.

We will honour our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation by nurturing respectful and reciprocal relationships among Indigenous Peoples and Treaty Partners, and by cultivating intergenerational healing and wellness in a restorative education system.

A strategic plan helps define and share the direction the organization will take in the next five years. It includes the organization’s vision and mission statements, goals and the actions to achieve those goals.

• Learn more: HWDSB Multi-Year Strategic Plan

A vision statement describes an organization’s long-term goals, and how it wants to make a difference in the future. 

• Our Vision: Growing Together.

A mission statement is an action-based statement that declares the purpose of an organization and how it serves their stakeholders. 

• Our Mission: To ensure that every student experiences a sense of belonging and engages in dynamic learning to reach their potential and build their own future.

Values list the core principles that guide and direct an organization and its culture. 

• Our Values: Compassion, Dignity, Trust and Joy.

Strategic Directions define a course of action that leads to the achievement of an organization’s goals. 

Our Strategic Directions:
 

• Upholding Human Rights, Safety & Well-Being
  • We will support all students and staff to feel safe and secure in our classrooms and school communities.
• Providing Equitable Quality Education
  • We will offer equitable quality educational opportunities to improve student engagement, learning and achievement for future-readiness.
• Collaborating with Students, Families & Communities
  • We will build reciprocal relationships and partnerships to enhance access and engagement for students, families, and communities.
• Building a Sustainable Education System
  • We will adapt to a rapidly changing world through responsible fiscal management, investing equitably in accessible and sustainable facilities, and supporting a robust workforce.
• Reinforcing Indigenous Educational Wellness & Reconciliation
  • We will honour our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation by nurturing respectful and reciprocal relationships among Indigenous Peoples and Treaty Partners, and by cultivating intergenerational healing and wellness in a restorative education system.

A tagline is a phrase that serves as an expression of an organization’s greater purpose and mission.

• Our Tagline: Be You. Be Excellent. 

HWDSB received help from a team of strategic planning specialists and innovative thinkers to support this journey. Together, with teams from Groundswell, Saffy and I-Think, HWDSB students, staff, families and community members contributed to the following:

• 1 Public Meeting with 100+ Participants
• 5 Youth-led Pop-ups
• 6 Community Pop-ups
• 7 Advisory Groups and Student Leadership Workshops
• 43 Interviews
• 3000 Survey Responses
• Challenge Kits in HWDSB schools with contributions from hundreds of students

These engagement opportunities helped to inspire and develop our new vision, mission, values, Strategic Directions and tagline. Our new path forward for HWDSB is specifically designed to enhance our existing work – centered on students having a deep and meaningful sense of belonging while experiencing impactful learning outcomes for all. 

Yes, the HWDSB logo has been refreshed to celebrate the launch of the Multi-Year Strategic Plan. The HWDSB logo is a letterform logo. The typeface remains the same, but the kerning (the spacing between the letters) has been tightened up and the colour has been updated from our old board blue to the new blue to match the brand colours of our MYSP branding.

The first phase of this creative rebrand was meant to provide a specific design and creative approach for the launch of the new Multi-Year Strategic Plan. You will begin to see this creative direction applied to organizational-wide items (e.g. logos, website, memo templates, email signatures etc.) and other platforms in an ongoing fashion. Future phases will include additional photoshoots, digital materials and more.