DANVILLE — The Danville school district has many strengths including a diverse curriculum, a rich tradition of extracurricular activities and a dedicated staff that cares about students and does a good job of preparing them for higher education and the workforce, according to a wide range of community members.

However, they also see areas that need improvement, said Dave Kietzmann, who helped facilitate a long-term strategic planning initiative for the district.

After working on it for close to a year, Kietzmann and co-facilitators Melody Ehrlich and Carl Alexander will present a draft of the plan to the Danville school board on Wednesday.

"This is by no means a final document," said Kietzmann, Danville Area Community College's vice president of instruction and student services. "An internal team within the district will review it and put the finishing touches on the plan."

Once it's finalized, "the plan will be a road map for the school district for the next five years," Superintendent Mark Denman said.

The Danville School Board will meet at 6:30 p.m on Wednesday at the Jackson Building, 516 N. Jackson St., Danville. A copy of the agenda is available online at http://bit.ly/r8mSO0.

To create the draft, Kietzmann, Ehrlich and Alexander held 34 focus group meetings involving hundreds of people. They included school board members, administrators, staff and students and many external groups including DACC staff; Vermilion Advantage officials, business leaders, United Way members, neighborhood associations and other community members.

"Our goal was to determine what people thought the district was doing well and what the district could do better," Kietzmann said.

He added the plan identifies strengths, which also include creating a good learning environment, being innovative and using technology. "But it spends most of the time talking about goals for the future and strategies for implementing those goals," he said.

The goals are grouped into the following categories: Academic achievement and curriculum; communication and marketing; facilities, infrastructure and technology; and financing, funding and cost containment. They also include human resources and staffing; parental and community involvement; and safety and discipline.

Denman said board members may revise the document. Then they will have to prioritize the goals and strategies and determine how to implement them.

Kietzmann said he was pleased by the community's participation.

"It was strong, almost overwhelming," he said, adding most groups had between 25 to 30 people. "They're people who really care about the district, people who think the district is doing a good job but can do better. In some cases, what their perceptions are may or may not be reality. Even if it's not reality, that tells us there needs to be some increased communication about what's happening."