The Sto-Rox School District has a troubled academic history, falling under state supervision in 2000 and with lagging test scores in recent years. And the newly opened Propel Montour charter school in Kennedy has 85 Sto-Rox kids among its students, evidence that parents are eager for alternatives.

Superintendent Fran Serenka sees that all changing, though, as the district follows the course laid out in a five-year strategic plan approved by the school board last Thursday.

The plan, which will be submitted to the state, lays out the course Ms. Serenka wants the district to follow.

In simplest form, that course will be to follow state guidelines religiously and to use every scrap of test data there is to hone the district's teaching.

"Being data-informed is absolutely the most important function of the school district," Ms. Serenka said.

And that data goes beyond academics to things like attendance and particularly discipline.

"Kids don't act up if they are engaged in what they are doing" in class, Ms. Serenka said. "We'll know that teachers are doing their jobs and kids are engaged if disciplinary data go down."

One focal point in the educational approach is a vertically aligned mathematics curriculum, so that each year's instruction builds on what was learned the year before. Another is the increasing use of computers, especially through the state's Classrooms of the Future grant program.

There also is a focus on the transitional years of middle school and ninth grade, when children are shifting from the memory-based learning of elementary school to the deeper, more analytical, more adult thought processes of high school.

"We want to encourage them to go deeper into subjects" in middle school, engaging in more projects to spark a thoughtful approach to learning, she said. And the newly launched Freshman Academy will nurture students as they enter high school, with a set core curriculum, a hallway of their own and close attention from teachers.

The move toward analytical thinking will be encouraged in the high school as well, with a move away from what Ms. Serenka calls "dead knowledge." In other words, if you can look up a fact, especially in a computer search taking mere seconds, there's not much point memorizing it; education should be teaching students how to gather those facts, think about them and draw deeper conclusions.

"You can never leave people with bare, empty facts, because they're just bare, empty facts," Ms. Serenka said, noting that the strategic plan calls for a move to "inquiry-based" education.

Ms. Serenka, hired in the summer of 2005, sees the plan as a defined continuation of things she's already been trying to do.

"When I measure where Sto-Rox was 25 months ago, we've come a long way," she said. Part of that is because the district's path is being defined. "I have teachers saying that for the first time in their lives they know where the district is going. For the first time, they know what the goal is."

The district still faces great challenges. It is small, with only about 1,500 pupils, and a meager tax base in blue-collar Stowe and McKees Rocks. About one student out of three is identified as having special needs, requiring individual education plans and special education classes. The budget is low and taxes are high, and school board members have a habit of using meetings for verbal sparring matches.

But Ms. Serenka sees no reason those issues should keep Sto-Rox from offering excellence.

"With finances, if you're very, very creative and very careful they're not so much of a problem," she said. "We're not affluent, but we're making sure our students experience the same opportunities as any other student."