Three teams of parents, students, teachers and staff will spend this fall shaping a five-year strategic plan for the San Mateo-Foster City School District's 22 TK-8 schools.

The district announced the launch of its STAR Teams, short for Strategy Teams for Actions and Results, in a post on its website Monday, Aug. 31. Each team has roughly 20 members drawn from certificated staff, classified staff, families, students and administrators. School sites are represented across all three groups.

The teams correspond to three focus areas the district drew from its Community Vision: Academic Excellence by Design, Real World Learning and Community Wellbeing. The Board of Trustees unanimously approved that Community Vision on May 28 after a nine-month engagement process. The district collected input from more than 2,300 survey respondents, roughly 600 participants in community meetings and a Vision Design Team that logged more than 25 hours reviewing feedback.

Between September and November, each STAR Team will meet for four full-day workshops. The first session sets five-year goals, and the second prioritizes initiatives and defines how progress will be measured. The third maps year-by-year implementation, and the fourth brings the draft plan back to stakeholder groups for review and revision.

A district support team called CREW will work between workshops to answer questions about budget impact, staffing requirements and trade-offs so STAR Teams have concrete data when they make decisions.

"They brainstorm, they define the measures of success, and they iterate on an approach for realizing the five-year goals," Lisa Joseph, chief of strategic plan initiatives, said of the teams in the district's Aug. 31 announcement.

Joseph said the three focus areas represent a shift "from improvement to transformation."

The work started with students. On Wednesday, Aug. 26, students who served on the Vision Design Team met with students joining the new STAR Teams. They passed along what they had learned: how to speak up in a room full of adults, how to disagree well and how to stay at the table when the work moves slowly.

Rosa Torres-Noriega, a district alumna and parent of a child with special needs, served on the Vision Design Team during the 2025-2026 school year. "I have been his biggest advocate since TK," Torres-Noriega said in remarks shared by the district. "I wanted to ensure he felt supported and that other families facing similar challenges knew they were not alone."

The Bay Ed Fund, which facilitated a district trip to Lindsay Unified School District where 45 parents, students, staff and board members spent two days reimagining what teaching and learning can look like, continues its partnership as STAR Teams begin work.

STAR Teams are scheduled to finish writing by the end of November. The district plans to establish progress-monitoring routines and an annual evaluation plan from December through March 2027. The Board Agenda Builder lists the Community Strategic Plan as a superintendent agenda item at board meetings in September, October, November, December, February, March and May.