Ardsley High School Planning & Performance Leadership Team (PPLT)

Focus of of work for the 2020-2021 school year
The Ardsley High School PPLT (Planning & Performance Leadership Team) is comprised of faculty members, students, parents, and school administrators. During this school year, we met as a team once a month from 3:00pm-4:00pm via zoom. We began the year considering possible areas of focus that would be aligned with the Ardsley School District Plan and Vision.  After some discussion, the group decided to continue the focus on the Senior Externship experience.  This work began in the 2019-20 school year but was interrupted due to the pandemic.

Our purpose was to evaluate the current program and ensure that our 12th-grade students had opportunities for a robust, purposeful, and meaningful senior project experience. Since this year was not a traditional school year, many new factors came into play including dates of AP exams and the fact that many businesses and companies were unable to accept student interns. In order to adjust to the current times, the team collaborated to recreate the senior project experience.

Results of our work:

We developed and administered a Senior Externship Survey to understand what areas and topics were of most interest to our seniors.  Broad interest in entrepreneurship and financial planning was expressed in the survey. The PPLT then worked as a team to make available workshops on these two important areas.

We were honored to welcome Dr. David Rivera of Flagler College as he presented a workshop series for entrepreneurship.  Dr Rivera covered topics such as creating a value proposition, customer segmentation, customer relationships, channel partners and cost structures.

We also welcomed Jim DeGaetano Jr., President and Wealth Advisor for Diamond Wealth Advisors.  In his workshop, Mr. DeGaetano provided information on financial planning strategies specific to students in order to help empower them to gain confidence and control of their finances.

Looking Forward

As we approach September, we will be making available a calendar of the PPLT meeting dates and times for the 2021-2022 school year and applications for students/parents who are interested in participating.  We will also be creating a “Q&A” form for parents to submit questions directly to the PPLT for consideration. 

To keep the community informed of the PPLT’s activities, we will provide regular and timely updates on our focus and progress throughout the school year.

Thank you again to the 2020-2021 PPLT for their hard work and active collaboration.  It truly does take a village and we are grateful for the support of our entire learning community.