STRATEGIC DIRECTIONCreating an agenda of the strategic issues facing the organization is the core value of executing a strategic plan. The culture of the organization has a direct effect on what is considered a critical issue or not. Therefore, any change in the organization will cause a change in the organizational culture. Therefore, it is important to carefully perform external and internal environmental analysis to identify critical organizational issues. (Bryson 2011, 185-186)The purpose of carrying out strategic direction is to identify the set of strategic and operational issues facing the organization in order to prioritize them and find ways to resolve them. (Bryson and Alston 2011, 137) Strategic direction provides the context for more specific decisions about the organization's policies, strategies, and programs. Most importantly, it provides the basis for decision making on resource distribution. In this step we will explain the critical issues and where they come from. Additionally, we will list the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges/threats in the Brendel School environment and how we have narrowed down the critical issues to this issue. Additionally, we will describe the selected critical issues and explain why they are selected with high priority.Critical IssuesThe list of critical issues is derived from detailed studies and analyses. First, we examined the organization's history, mission, and operations and assessed how they have changed over time. We then collected data for the SWOC/T analysis to identify the organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges or threats. To collect data, we conducted an environmental analysis to sort the external...... middle of paper ......can Brendel School do to increase the number of students enrolled at Brendel Elementary School? The allowance from the state fund will increase if the number of students enrolled in the school increases, since the amount of payment depends on how many students the school has. Brendel School needs to integrate a good marketing strategy to spread its good reputation in the community and gain the trust of parents to attract more students to the school. However, Brendel School has a good relationship with Flint Journal and the principal is putting more effort into dealing with Media Company tries to present Brendel School to the public in a more positive way. Helping the school attract more students requires more careful planning, especially during this time when most of the surrounding schools in the area have competitive enrollment numbers each year.