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TUSD Visioning Process

We are currently undertaking a process to develop a vision for Tucson Unified School District based on shared core values. Our goal is for this to be a collaborative process that includes input from the staff, students, and the community served by TUSD to create a shared vision for the district that builds upon our strengths and acknowledges our challenges.

An outline of the process is below. We will update this page as steps are completed.

The Process
Step 1
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Step 2
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Step 3
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Step 4

The Steps

  • Step 1 (Completed): What are your ideas?

    During September 2011, we conducted a district-wide survey to collect input from TUSD employees about who we are as a district and how we can improve.

  • Step 2 (Completed): What did we learn from your ideas?

    We analyzed and summarized over 3,300 responses, which can be viewed in the TUSD Organizational Culture Survey: Summary of Results.

    The responses touched on a range of ideas and issues, including:

    • Clarifying and satisfying the vision that guides the efforts of employees and constituents
    • Calling for stronger, more responsive leadership at the District level
    • Improving systems for accountability and organization to effectively support students and the community
    • Acknowledging employees for a job well done and addressing poor performance
    • Communicating more efficiently and more effectively overall

    In addition, employees noted the following:

    • Size and diversity are both sources of strength and a challenge
    • Support and collaboration are necessary for success
    • A unified approach to educational issues such as curriculum and assessment is essential
    • Positive communication, both internally and externally, is needed to create a culture of mutual respect, clear information exchange, improved public image, and continued dialogue that focuses on results for students
    • TUSD has a great variety of programs and services that meet the needs of a diverse population as well as talented and dedicated people to implement those programs
    Word map of what differentiates us

    Word map of what differentiates us as a district

  • Step 3 (Current Step): What do we want to do based on what we learned?

    We have reached the part of the process where we want TUSD employees to review the TUSD Organizational Culture Survey: Summary of Results and discuss what they want to do based on the results. In other words, we are asking employees,

    "Based on this information, what do we want to create?"

    At this time, we are not looking for specific solutions to problems. Rather, we would like employees to construct guiding principles that will direct our actions when we get to Step 4, which involves figuring out what we can actually do to become the district we want to be. This is an extremely important step in the process that will lead to the ultimate question which is, "How do we do it?"

    Word map of what we want to become

    Word map of what we want to become

  • Step 4 (Next Step): What can we actually do?

    Once we receive the discussion summaries from Step 3, we can examine the work and identify a set of values for the District. These values will be used to create a vision statement for TUSD that we can present to the community for input.

    Click here to view TUSD’s existing mission, vision, and values.