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Strategic Waiver School System (SWSS)
Strategic Waiver School System (SWSS) & Policy Waiver Implications

This webpage will be updated periodically to reflect the current work and status of the SWSS implementation.

The District’s SWSS work has been organized into three phases as described in the following narrative.

1Phase I is the Flexibility Option Discovery and Adoption. The District had to select by June 30, 2015, one of the following options: Status Quo; Investing in Educational Excellence (IEs), now known as Strategic Waivers School System (SWSS); and Charter System. Phase I included the formulation of a Flexibility Decision Steering Committee which included school, district, and community representation. The District conducted four informational meetings to explain the options to the public. An additional meeting was held for all school councils and school parent groups. Written comments were solicited and received from the informational meetings and online surveys with all information shared with principals and disseminated to each staff. All findings from the steering committee were provided to the Superintendent. The Superintendent made a recommendation to the Board of Education to select IE2/SWSS as its operating system with BOE approval of the application occurring on April 13, 2015. A letter of intent was submitted to the State Board of Education. 


2Phase II is the SWSS Application Approval. After the District prepared the SWSS/IE2 application which was approved by the CCPS Board of Education on April 13, 2015, the District Support Teams were developed to include five committees to facilitate the SWSS implementation process. This work began in July 2015 and continues to the present. The District’s SWSS/IE2 application was approved by the State Board of Education in November 2015. The five district committees were merged into three committees in March 2016. The State Board of Education issued the SWSS Contract April 6, 2016. 


3Phase III is the SWSS Implementation. The District’s SWSS Committee began to organize for implementation by identifying a sub-committee that met in July and August 2016 to develop the SWSS Request Process and Timeline. This information was shared with Principals on August 18, 2016. However, upon feedback from Principals, The SWSS Committee thought it prudent to revisit all SWSS waivers with all Principals and to provide principals an opportunity to participate in professional learning about innovation. A sub-committee was developed to plan for “Innovation Conversations” with Principals conducted on September 27, 2016. The innovation conversations provided principals an opportunity to explore innovation and to obtain a deeper dive into the waivers. Additionally, the SWSS Committee engaged in the “parameterization” process which afforded a sub-committee assigned to each waiver to determine policy revisions and parameters for each waiver. The SWSS Plan has been revised and updated to reflect all three phases, the parameterization work as reflected in the appendices, and the next steps for principals as it relates to engaging their school community and completing the SWSS Request Process by mid-January 2017. 

All the work of Phases I, II, and III will result in principals working with their school community to identify their desired innovations and to submit a SWSS Plan using the District’s online SWSS Request Process by mid-January 2017, for an implementation during August 2017. The time period between mid-January 2017 and August 2017 will be dedicated to reviewing each school’s SWSS request for approval, the providing of support, and the alignment of resources within the 2017-2018 budget process.