2014 Guidelines for Program Planning-rev 1 · Guidelines for Documenting Program Excellence 9 •...

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Guidelines for Documenting Program Excellence 2014 Version 1.0 For Use with County and Unit Faculty/Staff

Transcript of 2014 Guidelines for Program Planning-rev 1 · Guidelines for Documenting Program Excellence 9 •...

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Guidelines for  Documenting Program Excellence    

2014    Version 1.0        For Use with County and Unit Faculty/Staff        

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Table  of  Contents  Guidelines for Planning ................................................................................................................. 3  

What is a Program? ................................................................................................................... 3  

What is Program Planning? ....................................................................................................... 3  

Minimum Expectations for County Programming ...................................................................... 4  

Resources for Program Development .......................................................................................... 5  

Texas Extension Accountability System (TexasData) ............................................................... 5  

Organizational Development ..................................................................................................... 5  

Family and Consumer Sciences ................................................................................................ 6  

Agriculture and Natural Resources ............................................................................................ 6  

4-H and Youth Development ..................................................................................................... 6  

PLANNING ................................................................................................................................... 7  

Developing and Modifying Plans ............................................................................................... 8  

Creating a Plan ........................................................................................................................ 10  

Add a New Plan (Educational) ............................................................................................. 11  

Program Area Category ................................................................................................... 12  

Issue Source .................................................................................................................... 13  

Plan Description ............................................................................................................... 14  

Plan Goal ......................................................................................................................... 15  

Identify the Target Audience ............................................................................................ 16  

Other Personnel / Team Members ................................................................................... 16  

Educational Approach Information ................................................................................... 17  

......................................................................................................................................... 17  

Create an Event, Activity, or Experience ......................................................................... 18  

Evaluation/Impact Information ......................................................................................... 19  

Volunteer/Collaborator Information .................................................................................. 20  

Submitting Plan for Approval ........................................................................................... 21  

Creating a Plan from a Template ......................................................................................... 22  

Making Plan Detail Selections ......................................................................................... 23  

Making Educational Approach Information Selections ..................................................... 24  

Submitting Plan for Approval ........................................................................................... 25  

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Guidelines  for  Planning  

OVERVIEW

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and the Cooperative Extension Program at Prairie View are educational agencies of the Texas A&M System. Our mission is to improve the lives of people, businesses, and communities across Texas and beyond through high-quality, relevant education. To achieve this mission, we develop, deliver, and evaluate educational programs on a wide variety of issues involving agriculture and natural resources, families and health, youth development, and community and economic development. The section below provides the fundamentals of the process used to develop programs in AgriLife Extension & the Cooperative Extension Program.

What  is  a  Program?  

A program is a comprehensive set of activities, events, experiences that leads to intended results. These activities, events, and experiences are reported as tasks within TexasData. Intended results include increases in knowledge, change in attitude, performance of skills, and changes in behavior or the adoption of practices. A program is typically not a single activity since single activities rarely lead to the intended results listed above.

What  is  Program  Planning?  

Program planning is a process by which community leaders work with Extension educators to identify issues and needs, establish program plans and implement education to help people reach their goals. Boone, Safrit, & Jones, (2002) notes the following assumptions about educational programs:

• Programming is focused toward change in behavior of the learner.

• Programming is a decision making process.

• Programming is a collaboration between the organization (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service or Cooperative Extension Program at Prairie View) and community leaders.

• Programming is a system that contains three major parts (planning, design & implementation, and evaluation).

Going through the program planning process enables you to establish plans of actions for the upcoming year. During programming planning you have the opportunity to develop unique programs that fit the environment of your counties.

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Minimum  Expectations  for  County  Programming    The following list of minimum expectations should be met in each county, as they relate to individual plans, and to the total county program effort.

Overall Vision for Program Plans

! Innovation - Extension educators will utilize a new approach with a new audience during the program year.

! Visibility – Programs and activities will be planned to increase agency visibility. ! Technology – In-Depth programs will incorporate some use of technology in

educational delivery. ! Partnerships – Strategic partnerships will strengthen and bring additional resources to

programs. ! Volunteers – All programs will be planned with significant strategies to mobilize

volunteers in support of program goals.

Specific Program Plan Expectations

• Agents will have 2 to 4 In-Depth program plans, and additional Outreach plans as needed.

• In-Depth programs will be guided by Program Area Committees or similar planning groups. These committees will meet regularly and be actively engaged in planning, marketing, implementation, evaluation and interpretation of programs. Planning group meetings should include subject matter training for committee members from specialists or other technical experts.

• In-Depth programs will include a series of educational events and activities that are targeted to a specific issue and a specific audience. These programs will lead to strong participant outcomes, measured by specific evaluation plans that are clearly included in the plan.

• Agents will plan for interpretation. Target audiences for interpretation include elected officials, stakeholders, planning group members, partners, other Extension volunteers groups, and the general public.

• Each county will have an Emergency Management Plan will all agents contributing. • ANR Agents will conduct a minimum of two (2) result demonstration or applied research

projects. • FCS Agents will provide leadership to the Better Living for Texans program plan with

appropriate involvement from co-workers. • Each county will have a 4-H Youth Development plan with a goal of increasing

enrollment, as well as a curriculum enrichment plan. These plans may be In-Depth or Outreach as determined by activities conducted and evaluation strategies. Each county will have a minimum of one (1) In-Depth program plan targeting a youth audience.

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Resources  for  Program  Development  

There are several websites that offer program development resources and tools to assist you in your program planning efforts. These sites are listed below:

Texas  Extension  Accountability  System  (TexasData)  

TexasData has a ‘Help and Contact’ section with many helpful links. The address for TexasData is http://texasdata.tamu.edu. Login using your Agnet id and password and then click on the ‘Help and Contact’ tab at the top of the page to access these links.

Organizational  Development  

Organizational Development has resources available for all aspects of the program development process. The address is: http://od.tamu.edu/. Within this website are several new informative sources of information. These include:

o Resources supporting program planning including worksheets designed for TExAS, and support resources such as the program development guide, voice over presentations, newsletters, and various other resources.

o Resources supporting evaluation and accountability efforts.

Resources supporting individual development.

Texas  Volunteer  Website    

The Texas Volunteer website provides resources for all aspects of volunteer management and recruitment. The web address is: http://agrilife.org/od/volunteerism/. Specific resources located on this website include:

• Resources on the development and management of County Leadership Advisory Boards

• Resources on the development and management of County Youth Boards • Resources supporting Program Area Committees and Associations/Chapters • Publications and curriculum on all aspects of volunteer management.

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Family  and  Consumer  Sciences  

The Family and Consumer Sciences website has a wealth of resources and tools available for agent use. Go to http://fcs.tamu.edu and login to the agent side of the system. Login to the agent password protected site by using your county name, then office zip code as the password.

 

Agriculture  and  Natural  Resources    

The Extension Agriculture & Natural Resources provides agents and specialists with a wide array of information that can be beneficial during the program planning process. Packaged programs, regional issues, and team reports are just a few of the resources that agents and specialists may utilize during the programming process. Go to http://extensionanr.tamu.edu.

4-­‐H  and  Youth  Development  

The Texas 4-H website also includes information of value to agents and specialist as they plan programs. Go to http://texas4-h.tamu.edu.

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PLANNING      

Deadlines for individual plans, submission, and approval will be set by your Regional Program Leader, District Extension Administrator/County Extension Director, or Associate Department Head/Program Leader. Plans are reviewed and approved using the following protocol:

A. County-Based Faculty

Educational Plans are to be reviewed and approved by the Regional Program Leader for the subject of the plan respective to the Regional Program Leader’s role.

Organizational Support are to be reviewed and approved by the District Extension Administrator or County Extension Director. For Cooperative Extension Program (CEP) faculty, plans are to be reviewed by the respective CEP Program Leader for ANR or FCS. CEP 4-H plans are to be reviewed by the designated CEP Program Leader.

B. Unit-Based Faculty

All plans are to be reviewed and approved by the Associate Department Head/Program Leader respective to the unit where the specialist is primarily assigned.

There are two (2) parts to all plans; the Plan Overview and Tasks.

The Plan Overview consists of information that describes what the plan is, when the plan takes place, why it is being conducted, who it addresses, and where the issue was identified. Think of this as the what, when, why, who, and where of the plan.

Tasks are the activities, events, and/or experiences that are designed to implement the plan, also known as the ‘how’ of program planning. There are three (3) types of tasks: Planning Groups, Educational Methods, and Interpretation. For more information on developing tasks and examples of each of the three refer to page 18.

Each plan should have multiple tasks according to what is needed to accomplish the plan. Worksheets are available at http://agrilife.org/od/program-development/program-development-resources/. The worksheets provide a template for putting together information needed for the plan overview.

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Developing  and  Modifying  Plans    Plans should be developed based on the specific needs of the clientele being served. Plans are built using a model developed by the Organizational Development unit. The Organizational Development unit focuses on program and employee development. Plans are documented in the accountability system called TexasData (Texas Extension Accountability System). Below is the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Program Development Model that is foundational to all that we do to meet the needs of our diverse clientele across the state.

TexasData allows for multi-year planning so all plans do not have to be re-written or developed annually. As you plan for the current year and beyond, you will have 3 options available to develop your plans. These options include:

• Add new plans means plans are completely original and created by the user. These plans are typically programs specific to an individual county/unit.

• Create Plans from a Template: Templates provide the opportunity for faculty to implement a pre-developed plan with core tasks that are consistent across the state. Example Plans include: Walk Across Texas, BLT, EarthKind Stewardship, Master Gardener, and Quality Counts. Any program that has a set curriculum or needs to be used in multiple counties in a similar way could potentially utilize a template. All plans created from a template will be able to be adapted for specific use at the county level with one exception:

o You will not be able to edit the Program Area Category the program plan to fit

your county. You should identify what makes the county unique and make proper modifications to your programs. Please go to TexasData Help for a list of all program area categories with templates.

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• Modify your existing plans (from existing): An existing plan is any plan that you previously developed in TExAS. This method of creating a plan will allow adjustments to be made to existing plans from year to year. Multi-year plans are possible, but they will now be separated into yearly segments, with a report (either intermediate or final) due at the end of each year.

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Creating  a  Plan When creating a new plan, select the type of plan which best fits the situation. Different plans are used in different situations. Whether it be developing an original plan or developing one from a template you must know what type of plan will work best for your specific issue. The screenshots below (from the Manage Plans tab) illustrate the options available when selecting a plan.

BY  SELECTING  A  PROGRAM  AREA  CATEGORY  WHICH  IS  ASSOCIATED  WITH  A  TEMPLATE(S)  THE  TEMPLATE  SECTION  BECOMES  AVAILABLE  IN  ORDER  TO  MAKE  YOUR  PLAN  TEMPLATE  SELECTION.  

USE  THE  ADD  NEW  PLAN  BUTTON  AT  THE  UPPER  LEFT  TO  BEGIN  THE  NEW  PLAN  PROCESS  

 

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Add a New Plan (Educational)

Add New Plans means plans are completely original and created from scratch by the user following the program development model and using the worksheets you have already completed.

Begin your plan by adding the plan title (to consist of year, county name, and plan name). Add your beginning and ending dates for the plan and designate whether the plan will be a 4-H plan.

Next choose whether your plan will address a county identified issue or not.

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Identifying  Issues  Steps to add a new plan are derived from Phase 1 - PLAN:

Step 1 – Identify the Issue from the Program Planning model. As you begin the program planning process it is important you are targeting issues that are relevant to your county/unit. There are a number of ways in which issues can be identified within counties. Some of these include:

Leadership Advisory Boards – The Leadership Advisory Board (LAB) is designed to be advisory in nature. The LAB is responsible for the “big picture” of the county program. Specifically, their role is to provide long-term vision for the county program, serve as advocates for the county program by assisting with interpretation of the program throughout the county, and provide support to develop resources for the county program. Program Area Committees – Program Area Committees advise Extension educators about issues and needs in the areas of agriculture and natural resources, family and consumer sciences, and community and economic development. Youth Boards – Youth Boards advise Extension educators working with the 4-H and youth development program. Associations/Coalitions – Volunteer associations and coalitions are made up of volunteers with similar interests and education that come together for a common cause. Such groups support the mission of Texas Extension through their education and service. Others include specialists, data trends, etc.

For Extension educators to be successful it is imperative they target their programs towards issues identified by groups like the ones listed above. These committees and boards are the “grass roots” that make Extension programs successful.

Program  Area  Category  

If you chose “yes” the plan is addressing a county identified issue, then the list of issues to select from will pull from what is entered for your county in the Extension Planning Group (EPG) portal of TexasData. Make a primary and secondary county issue selection.

If you chose “no” the plan is not addressing a county identified issue, then the list of issues to select from will list pre-defined issues with 4 areas (to be expanded). Make a primary and secondary county issue selection.

CLICK  ON  +  ICON  TO  LEFT  OF  CATEGORIES  TO  EXPAND  AND  VIEW  ISSUES  

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Issue  Source  

The issue source is the designation of where the issue was identified in the county. This information should be retrieved from your Planning Group Checklists

-OR -

Identifying  Issue  cont.  Once an issue has been identified, you must determine social, economic and environmental ramifications associated with answers to the issue. Moreover, you should research the issue’s scope and severity. These first impressions about an issue are called its “situation.” When evaluating a situation, ask yourself the following:

• Why is this issue a major problem?

• How severe is the problem created by the issue?

• What are the costs associated with the problem?

• Do we have the resources to solve the problem?

• What previous efforts have addressed this issue? Can we team with these efforts or must we go ahead on our own? What can we learn from earlier efforts?

• What are the implications if we do not solve the problem?

• What will happen to the community if the issue is not resolved?

• What are the benefits of solving the problem?

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Plan  Description  

After selecting an issue source you will fill in the plan description. In this area discuss issues identified (from the Issue Analysis/Description Work Sheet). Include the issue(s) severity and how it will affect the community.

Describing  the  Situation  When describing the situation you must decide why issues identified in step 1 are important. You should look at the severity of the situation and any costs associated with it. In addition, you must decide what consequences will come about if the issue is not resolved. Below are five terms you should be familiar with when describing the situation:

• Scope/Size – the number of participants, location of activities, and length and size of program

• Severity – the level of

importance of the topic being covered

• Social – human factors to

consider, such as ethnicity, socioeconomic, age, and geographical location

• Economic – financial impact • Environmental conditions –

impact on natural resources, such as water and soil

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Plan  Goal  

The program goals should be easy to comprehend and interpret and will have already been defined in your Goal Work Sheet. The intended results should also be targeted at one of the forms of client change listed on in the sidebar.

Speci fying   Intended  Outcomes  

Before you can begin programming towards a specific outcome, you must determine what those intended outcomes will be. Intended outcomes, or client change, can be defined as the intended change they plan to bring about because of the program that is being implemented. Client change should be determined from the needs of the clients they are educating. Lower level results would include client awareness or satisfaction. There are six types of higher level client change broken into two categories. They are as follows:

Learning

• Knowledge – Knowledge gain pertains to learned information or accepted advice; it also includes varying levels of comprehension.

• Skills – Skills refer to individuals’

mental and physical abilities to use new and/or alternative processes.

• Attitudes – Attitudes focus on

individuals’ beliefs, opinions, feelings and perspectives

Application

• Behavior change – Behavior Change can be defined as changes or benefits for participants. Behavior change typically happens after a learning change has occurred. In other words, after a participant developed a skill, they may change their behavior if they deem it necessary.

• Best practices – Best Practice is when a participant decides that a new practice is preferred over the current practice and so they decide to adopt this practice.

• New technology – New Technology can be defined as participants adopting of innovations because of the educational program they participated in.

Once you determine what your outcomes will be you can then begin developing an education plan.

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Identify  the  Target  Audience  

When selecting the Primary and Secondary target audience, refer to the Target Audience Analysis Work Sheet to help determine which audience to choose.

Other  Personnel  /  Team  Members   If there will be any other personnel involved in a plan they should be added to the List Other Agents Involved in Plan box when creating a plan in TexasData. Other Personnel are commonly referred to as Team Members. Before adding any team member, make sure you visit with them to determine their willingness to participate and to decide their role. Once an agent is marked as involved with the plan they are able to both edit the plan and add/edit tasks.

Identifying  the  Target  Audience  Although often overlooked, identifying the target audience for a program is an important step. By identifying a specific target audience, you are able to narrow your educational focus and marketing efforts to a specific group. To determine a specific target audience you must identify the people who will be affected the most by the issue. In addition, the primary and secondary audiences will also need to be identified. Once the target audience is determined, you must determine if the number of people within this group can be reached through the program. After this decision is made, you may begin designing your program. Questions about target audiences that you should ask yourself include:

• Who are the people affected by this issue?

• How many people are in the target audience?

• How many members of the target audience can be reached with an educational program?

• What are some of the target audience’s characteristics?

• Does any baseline data about the target audience exist, particularly with regard to this issue?

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Educational  Approach  Information  

Include a summary statement about how you plan to address the issue through an educational program. What methods do you intend to implement? What are the general topics that you plan to teach? This section requires just a few sentences that summarize the educational outreach and methods of your plan. This should summarize the Educational Methods section of your worksheets.

 

 

 

Design  Identify or develop content for the issue/topic.

.

SUMMARIZE  THE  WORK  SHEET  FOR  THE  EDUCATIONAL  APPROACH  

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Create  an  Event,  Activity,  or  Experience  

Events, or tasks, are the activities, events, and/or experiences that are designed to implement the plan, also known as the ‘how’ of program planning. There are three (3) types of tasks: Planning groups, Educational methods, and Interpretation. Each plan should have multiple tasks according to what is needed to accomplish the plan.

Again, refer to the Educational Methods Work Sheet using the questions you already answered to determine what tasks you will need.

Design  (continued)  

Develop the activities and lesson plans for delivery

Planning Groups – a task to plan for and document the use of program area committees, youth boards, task forces, coalitions, etc in planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating Extension educational programs. Below are examples of possible planning groups you may use to help identify issues.

Educational Methods – a task to plan for and document educational activities, events, or experiences that will lead to clientele change or reactions. Several individual and group methods can be used to deliver subject matter; include a mixture of educational activities to achieve success. Try to incorporate a variety of teaching methods and styles, so that target audiences have opportunities to learn by a variety of means. Educational methods include group, mass media, one-to-one, letters/newsletters, and result demonstrations.

Interpretation – a task to plan for and document how information on the results of a program is disseminated to stakeholders either during a program or at the conclusion of a program. When developing an interpretation task or interpreting an event it is important to write toward the three “Rs.”…Relevance, Response, and Results.

Tasks can be copied in a monthly, quarterly, or custom fashion. The copy task feature is available from within Manage Tasks, rather than the plan itself.

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Evaluation/Impact  Information  

Summarize how you plan to evaluate and measure the impact your program has had on the target audience. The information will be drawn from the Evaluation Work Sheet.

Evaluation  

If your plan is aimed at awareness or customer satisfaction, then a Customer Satisfaction survey is likely the only evaluation method that you will include. However, if your plan has targeted clientele change in the higher-level categories, you will most likely have surveys, testing, observation, interviews, or other methods of data collection included in your strategy.

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Volunteer/Collaborator  Information  

If volunteers will be used for the program you will need to indicate the type of volunteers that are involved in the ‘volunteers’ section. Refer to the Volunteer Engagement Work Sheet for this area.

When conducting programs, any community, state, or national organizations/groups that are making contributions must be recognized by selecting them from the ‘collaborators’ section in the plan overview section. Please note: If you are collaborating with a statewide or national group/organization that is not listed in TexasData, please contact the TexasData help desk so the group/organization may be added to the list.

Volunteers  

Volunteers will fill one of two major roles in your educational plan:

1. Planning volunteers serve on Program Area Committees, Task Forces, Coalitions, Boards and other planning groups. These individuals serve to help ensure programs are relevant and correctly targeted.

2. Program Delivery Volunteers serve in roles that directly assist with the delivery of educational programs. These individuals may be Master Volunteers, Mentors, or other subject matter experts. They may also be members of a planning group and fill both roles in your program.

Successful programs will fully engage both volunteer types, and will have them involved in all four phases of program development.

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Submitting  Plan  for  Approval  

Every plan is required to have an approver. For County Extension Agents

• For Individual Development and Organizational Support plans, a DEA will be automatically designated as the approver.

• For Educational plans, you will be required to edit and select the appropriate RPL in your region.

For Specialists

• All plans will be approved by the specialist’s or unit faculty’s Associate Department Heads or Program Leaders.

Select the approver from the Plan Approver dropdown. The approvers listed will be pre-determined by the program area category chosen. For any organizational support category, the district administrator will be the default approver.

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Creating a Plan from a Template

Templates provide the opportunity for you to utilize a pre-developed plan with core tasks that are consistent across the state. An example Template is Better Living for Texas (BLT). Any program that has a set curriculum or needs to be implemented in a similar way could potentially be a template.

To gain access to a template a program area category with an associated template must be selected. In our example of BLT we first chose No to the question of Is this plan addressing a county identified issue?. We then chose Food & Nutrition from the Human Sciences category within the Program Area section of the plan. By making this selection the Template field was then opened and made available for use.

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Making  Plan  Detail  Selections  

More Details opens once your template name is selected. To make a selection click on the right arrow button to move the selection from the Program Template side to the Current Plan side.

Using  a  Template  

Templates have suggested selections under the Issues Source, Plan Description, Plan Goal, Intended Results, Primary and Secondary Target Audience.

* Note: Be sure to continually save as new information is entered into the system, as well as when you are finished. Any unsaved information will be lost and must be reentered.

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Making  Educational  Approach  Information  Selections  

Educational Approach Information follows the More Details selections. Continue to make a selections by clicking on the right arrow button to move the selection from the left to right side or type in information unique to your county’s plan.

Templates  continued  

They may also include suggested text for the Education Strategy, Evaluation & Data Collection Strategy, Volunteer Information, and Collaborators/Partners.

You may choose to use some, all, or none of the suggestions in each section. You can also make edits to any selections you choose.

* Note: Be sure to continually save as new information is entered into the system, as well as when you are finished. Any unsaved information will be lost and must be reentered.

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Submitting  Plan  for  Approval  

Every plan is required to have an approver. For County Extension Agents

• For Individual Development and Organizational Support plans, a DEA will be automatically designated as the approver.

• For Educational Plans, you will be required to edit and select the appropriate RPL in your region.

For Specialists

• All plans will be approved by the specialist’s or unit faculty’s Associate Department Heads or Program Leaders.

Select the approver from the Plan Approver dropdown. The approvers listed will be pre-determined by the program area category chosen. For any organizational support category, the district administrator will be the default approver.

To submit the plan for approval, click the Submit Plan for Approval button. The status will now reflect a submitted status and will be read only until the plan is returned as approved or for further edits.

For  more  information  regarding  planning,  contact  

your  Regional  Program  Leader  or    

The  Organizational  Development  Unit.