April 30, 2014 at 4:44 p.m.
District moving forward with new strategic plan
District moving forward with new strategic plan
As part of that pledge, Jacobi and the school board are preparing for a number of community stakeholder sessions to gather input on the district's new five-year strategic plan. The district is in the last year of an interim strategic plan that has carried it since the original five-year plan expired during the 2011-'12 school year.
The board has been preparing to draft a new plan since August, but decided in February to bring back Bruce Miles, a consultant with Big River Group, LLC, based in St. Cloud, Minn., to help with the effort. Miles worked with the district on its search for a new superintendent last year and is familiar with the school board.
During a special board retreat Monday, the group met with Miles to begin planning the many community stakeholder and staff sessions to be held in the coming weeks.
The board will be reaching out to district employees at all levels, students, parents, community groups, business groups, civic organizations, local and state government officials and anyone else who is a stakeholder in the district.
For starters, Miles and Jacobi informed the board about training sessions taking place this week that will prepare some district officials to lead the stakeholder sessions.
"When we're all done, we're going to have the perspective of a large selection of community members and employees," he said. "(Tuesday) morning, we're going to be taking some people and training them on how to go out and convene all the groups to get what you want to get."
There will be two types of sessions, Miles said.
"One group is going to be doing what we're doing tonight, which is formulating a vision and priorities," Miles said. "There's also going to be what's called a World Cafe model which is really a listening session, so they'll be asking people to speak in small groups and not be judgmental or argumentative, but asking things like what should the district change and other questions to get a lot of feedback from a lot of groups."
"By the time this thing's over, I want you to know what the employees think, what the community thinks. The more data you have, the better it's going to be," he added.
Jacobi said the stakeholder sessions have not been scheduled, but the plan is to hold most of them in May.
"Hopefully, mostly May. If we've got extras that are more community-based, those could go into June, but I want to be able to get all of our school sessions done in May," Jacobi said.
Some of the sessions involving staff members will be held during the school day when staff meetings are normally scheduled. During those sessions, only district employees will be able to participate because Jacobi said she wants to make sure everyone has a forum to speak their mind and feel comfortable doing so. Other sessions will be held after school at which time the public will be invited to participate.
"The school sessions, the ones during the day in the schools, will only be for (staff) groups because we can't have the buildings open. But, for the sessions that will take place after the school day, when the buildings are already open, then anyone can join in. Then the community sessions will be for whoever (wants to show up)," Jacobi said. "We're not going to target one night for ministers and church officials and another day for another group. We're going to send the dates out and if you know what works for you, let me know and you're welcome to come to any of them."
Jacobi said she doesn't want community members to feel intimidated by having to participate in a session full of district employees. That doesn't mean she doesn't want active cooperation between staff members and the public, however.
"We don't want community members to be intimidated because the school people are going to know (more about the process for creating the plan) and we don't want them to take over the meeting," she said.
"We'll invite staff to come to community meetings if they live in the community and want to do it as a community member. We want everyone to give their input. We want people to come to these meetings."
The employee sessions will take place during times when staff meetings are already scheduled so the district doesn't have to pay for substitutes.
"They will be at staff meeting times. We're not going to be hiring (substitutes) for any of this," Jacobi said. "We can't afford that and that's not what's best for the kids."
Goals and priorities
The board spent the remainder of the retreat discussing the goals and priorities it would like to see included in the new plan.
Among the goals mentioned were having all schools exceed expectations on state report cards, increasing graduation rates to 95 percent, seeing 75 percent of students go on to some form of higher education, garnering an 80 percent participation rate in regard to extra-curricular activities, becoming a destination for open enrollment students, becoming a leader in technology use in education, hiring and retaining high-quality teachers, formulating a plan for virtual learning opportunities, formulating a long-term facilities plan, improving technology education offerings to meet the needs of local businesses looking to hire qualified workers and better incorporating families into district happenings.
The board will now wait to compare its list with the lists created during the stakeholder sessions before continuing work on the plan.
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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