The old cliche is that “planning without action is futile, action without planning is fatal.”

The Chesapeake School District and the village community is coming together to avoid both these pitfalls by laying the plans and taking action that will lead the district and its students to the most successful future possible.

The district has a newly formed Chesapeake Core Planning Team that consists of school staff, community members and students.

That group will be working with Dr. Steven Barone, of Transformation Systems, Inc., a Syracuse, N.Y.-based education coach who has helped more than 200 school districts, to develop a clearly defined strategic plan that will guide the district’s educational efforts for years to come.

With every dollar to pay for this program coming from grant funding, that makes this project even more valuable and certainly money well spent.

This group will be working through numerous sessions in upcoming weeks to make sure that they are all on the same page about what is needed for the district’s educational future.

All businesses — and certainly all school districts — should invest in having a clearly outlined strategic plan.

We applaud the district employees, the students and the community members who are donating their time over the next 30 days or so to make this project become reality.

We hope to see the other school districts in Lawrence County — Ironton, St. Joseph Catholic School, Rock Hill, Symmes Valley, Coal Grove, South Point and Fairland —follow Chesapeake’s lead by working to either create a strategic plan or update an existing one.

Planning and organization are the keys to success in any endeavor. And when that success is measured by the impact it makes on students’ lives, it makes this preparation and leadership even more valuable.