June 9, 2014 at 5:09 p.m.
Last strategic planning session held at high school
Last strategic planning session held at high school
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. Bruce Miles, a consultant with Big River Group, LLC., based in St. Cloud, Minn., is spearheading the effort.
One of Miles' first suggestions was to set up multiple community stakeholder and staff sessions to gather input on the future of the district.
Five people showed up for the final session, teaming up to discuss four questions supplied by the district.
Question 1
In question one, the group was asked to list items for which Rhinelander High School graduates should thank the district five years after they graduate.
Participant Kyla Waksmonski, a graduate of RHS, said students five years from now should be thankful for exactly what she was thankful for after she graduated - the wide variety of college preparatory classes offered by the district.
"As a graduate of Rhinelander, I really appreciated all of the opportunities for AP (Advanced Placement) classes and the AP tests, so that you can actually get some college credits," she said.
"I thought that my standard of education was really high. When I went to college, it had definitely set me up for success and I think I was ahead of some of my peers."
Former teacher Joan Belongia mentioned the charter schools and the opportunity local students have to take classes at Nicolet. She said two of her grandchildren attended the charter schools and were very happy with their education.
"I really feel that they have gotten a great education, bottom line," she said.
"Five years after graduation, they feel that they were offered all of the opportunities and all the classes that they really felt they needed. It's the AP classes, but also the opportunity to go to Nicolet during the high school years. They're given an opportunity to excel and their needs were met."
In that same vein, parent Dawn Knudsen said she has always been thankful that district teachers are not afraid to push kids toward excellence.
"I would thank the teachers for pushing my kids to be better than they are," she said. "My kids have had teachers here that have said, 'Come on, you're better than this, you can do it,' ... and I really appreciate that. The teachers believe in the kids enough to show them they can always go a step further."
Steve Denis said the students should be thanking the district for preparing them to function in a community.
"We tend to focus a lot on technology and all that, but I think school should also be something to help these kids prepare to function in a community in general," he said. "They should thank (the district) for giving them an introduction to work life, so to speak."
Question 2
In question two, the participants were asked to detail their biggest concerns about the district.
Waksmonski said she worries about teacher evaluations being unfair. She said evaluations can serve a great purpose, but the district needs to make sure the process is done fairly.
"I love evaluation, I think evaluation makes everyone better, but my concerns, I guess, because I've seen some of the evaluation pieces coming out for teachers - which I think is great - but I'm having a difficult time wrapping my head around how so few administrators are going to do such an extensive evaluation on their staff effectively," she said.
"Staff needs to get a fair evaluation."
Belongia said, the administration should perform evaluations, but should also focus on mentoring teachers.
"Going along with that, I really feel that administrators need to be more mentors than evaluators," she said. "Evaluation needs to be there, I do agree, but there needs to be mentorship along the way. The other thing is, there's really a lack of respect for educators now," she added. "It's from the bottom up - from the teacher's aides to the teachers to the administrators - the respect has been going downhill within communities and it's really sad."
The concern brought up by Denis had to do with education in general. He said he's worried that change in schools happens to slowly to keep up with a world that changes quickly.
"Change in schools moves slowly. I don't think I need to tell anybody that the rest of the world moves pretty fast," he said.
"I just don't think that we're moving quick enough to catch up."
Communication was also a concern of the group.
"I do think that all the communication needs to improve, from top to bottom," Marilyn Zwaard said.
Waksmonski said she thinks communication has improved but there's still work to be done.
"I think that it's starting to get a lot better, ... but I think that communication, especially in the current political environment with such a lack of trust across the board and the country and everything else, I think that communication is something that can always be improved," she said.
Question 3
The third question posed by the district was connected to question two. The district asked what changes in practices need to be made to help achieve what was suggested in question two.
Waksmonski said the district needs to make sure it's using evidence and data when making decisions.
"I think that utilizing evidence-based methods for decisions is important," she said.
"Whenever new methods for teachers or administrators are decided on, I think behind that decision needs to be research and data to back up why the change is being made."
Belongia said the district should try to create more partnerships with local businesses to help kids get ready for life after high school.
"I had a bookstore for 18 years and one of the counselors would bring in kids every year to show them what it took to work," she said.
"They need more of that. They need to know what they're going to have to do when they get jobs."
Waksmonski said the district needs to be creative with its limited resources.
"With such limited resources across the board, I think being creative about how we can meet these learning standard and objectives by utilizing community partners to help us get there," Waksmonski said.
"I think there are a lot of opportunities for student learning to occur in a community group situation."
Question 4
The final question asked what the district is doing well that should be continued.
Zwaard said she hopes teachers will continue to put so much effort into helping their students.
"They care about our kids. Some places don't care at all," she said.
"The teachers I have seen and the ones my kids and grandkids have, they really do care."
Belongia agreed.
"There's so much," she said. "The thing that comes right to my mind is the way the adults care about the kids in the schools."
Knudsen said the district should keep the wide range of extra-curricular activities it offers.
"One thing that we sometimes forget is the extra-curricular things - the music programs, the sports, all of that," she said.
"I see so many schools try to get rid of those things, but I think they really make a difference, whether it's helping how someone feels about themselves or just being able to express yourself."
Waksmonski said the AP classes should continue.
"I think the diverse selection of college prep classes do a really good job for getting kids ready for the next phase of their life," she said.
"I think that's something Rhinelander should continue doing and have pride in."
Moving forward
With the community sessions completed, Superintendent Kelli Jacobi said administrators will summarize the information gathered and present it to the board of education.
"All of the facilitators - there's about 20 of us - will be doing a review of the data and data reduction where we narrow the themes and put all of the comments under a theme," she said. "We'll present that to the board at a board retreat."
Once the board gets the information, it will work to create a draft of the plan to bring back to the community.
"They will have the opportunity to review the data from all of the sessions and hopefully they'll be able to come up with what they believe the major goals should be and the priorities," she said.
"We'll go through that process and then, at the district level, we'll work on the action steps that we believe need to take place to reach those goals. That will happen all summer and then once the board has reviewed those action steps and we have a plan that is more complete, ... I will be sharing that with staff, parents, community for their input before the board finalizes the strategic plan."
Jacobi said the district has received a lot of good input, but she wishes more people would have attended the meetings.
"The community meetings went very well. We got a lot of input," she said.
"We didn't have as much turnout as we would have liked to see, but we did get some very good feedback."
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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