May 23, 2014 at 4:15 p.m.
District holds first stakeholder meeting for new strategic plan
District holds first stakeholder meeting for new 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 spearhead the effort. Miles worked with the district on its search for a new superintendent last year and is familiar with the school board.
One of Miles' first suggestions was to set up multiple community stakeholder and staff sessions to gather input on the district's priorities.
There will be two types of meetings held in the coming weeks. One will involve large group discussions where participants will formulate a vision and priorities for the plan. The other will be what is called a World Cafe model. That model involves splitting the attendees into smaller groups to discuss questions supplied by the district.
Wednesday's meeting was administered using the World Cafe model. Over 20 participants were put in smaller groups to discuss four questions posed by the district.
Director of Business Services Marta Kwiatkowski and Instructional Technology Coordinator Heidi Catlin led the discussion.
"The reason why we're here is because the district is writing a new strategic plan," Kwiatkowski explained to the crowd.
"The reason for these meetings is to gather input from the community and our staff and then the board of education will write the strategic plan using the input gathered."
"The reason you're here is because we want your input, we want your voice," Catlin added.
"We're asking for the voice of many people - the community, our staff, even our students. We want everyone to have a chance to respond to the questions and we want everyone to respect each other's opinions.
Once the crowd was divided into groups, four questions were posed.
Question 1
In question one, the group was asked what the students of Rhinelander should thank the district for five years after they graduate. In other words, the district wants to know what skills or knowledge students should have upon graduation.
One participant, Connie Anderson, said students should be ready for college and/or a career.
"(Students) need to be ready for a job or, on the other hand, be ready for college," she said.
"Whatever path they choose, they need to be ready for it," added Char Schneider. "They need a good, complete education."
Laurie Schlitt, interim CEO of the YMCA of the Northwoods, took it a step further and said the district needs to do a better job of helping students figure out what path they want to traverse after graduation.
"I think school counselors have gone by the wayside a little bit. They're such a valuable asset to our schools," she said.
"Those counselors are really important to our students and have a huge impact on the success of our students. (Students) need good counseling resources - for anything from home problems to helping them figure out what college they're going to or what job they're going to. They need to be ready for that next step."
Kenneth Urban, interim president of Nicolet Area Technical College, said career counseling should start early in high school.
"We're seeing a lot of students coming to us that don't even have the concept of a roadmap - where they want to be in a year, in five years and beyond," he said. "If they can come out of high school having at least talked about that, having thought about that, it would help a lot."
Beyond the classroom or the workforce, Schlitt said Rhinelander students have to be prepared for all of the responsibilities of adult life.
"They need to be world-ready - (they need to have) common sense, the ability to balance a checkbook, financial literacy, things like that that they maybe don't get at home," she said. "I've noticed that when we do Mad Money, a lot of them don't even know how to write a check, so it's really important for them to understand the little things that we take for granted. They need to be world-ready, life-ready."
Question 2
In question two, the participants were asked to detail their biggest concerns about the district.
Schlitt began the discussion by sharing that the lack of support from the community leads her to worry about the district's sustainability.
"It takes a village to raise a child. My concern is that, with all the failed referendums in the past, what is the sustainability of our school district?" she asked. "I think it's important for the community to band together around the school, to support our district."
Jim Hohman said the district needs to change the mindset that what was good enough decades ago is still good enough now.
"To me, the problem that Rhinelander has always had is with the established natives that believe if it was good enough for me when I grew up, it's good enough (for students now)," he said.
"My greatest concern for the student community is that lack of support, where people believe if it was good enough for me, it's good enough for them."
Bryan McDonald said he's most concerned about the lack of funds the district receives from the state.
"What really gets me is the financial support we get from the state. The state gives us basically nothing. They say we're land-rich," he said. "(Governor) Walker says he's going to put $500 million out there, but all of it went to the southern portion of the state. Very little of it came north. They've got to change that."
Moving away from the financial issues that face the district, Urban went back to what was discussed during question one, that students need to be better prepared for life after high school.
"The biggest concern I see is that a large percentage of students that go into post-secondary education come underprepared in at least one area and need remediation either in math, reading or science," he said.
"That's a real barrier for a lot of students because the quickest way to lose a student is to say before you can start doing welding or business management or anything like that, you need to take these other classes first. That's my biggest concern. ... They need to be better prepared."
Hohman said the district should look into helping students focus on a specific trade they might be interested in.
"We want kids to be able to focus on what they're interested in, on a trade they can use after high school." he said.
Schneider doesn't want the district to lose track of the basics.
"When you're specializing these kids, they still need things like history, the basic stuff. That's important, too," she said.
Question 3
The third question posed by the district was connected to question two. It asked what changes in practices need to be made to help achieve what was suggested in question two.
Anderson said the district's counselors need to become more active in helping students plan out their path to graduation and their plan for after graduation.
"I'd like to go back to the guidance counselors making a connection with the students. They can't wait for students to come to them, they need to seek out the students," she said.
"For planning a career or getting ready for college, the counselors need to help the kids figure out what they want to do and what they need to do to get on that path, and it's not just for academics but for social things, too. It needs to be the whole basket."
Schlitt said the district needs to make sure it is giving the counselors all the resources they need to help the students achieve their goals.
"There needs to be tools and resources available to the counselors so that they know how that can help the students move forward," she said.
In addition to having the counselors become more involved, Hohman said the district should team up with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity to help students learn the skills they'll need to achieve the goals they have set for themselves.
"There's an opportunity right now for the buildings and trades class to work with Habitat for Humanity," he said.
"The district needs these partnerships to teach kids. ... There's the possibility for on-site, real-world learning which is really powerful."
Speaking of partnerships, Urban said communication between the district and post-secondary educators needs to improve.
"The way we fix some of this is for much tighter integration between the high school and post-secondary schools," he said.
"To me, that's critical because the whole push in higher education is something called Career Pathways. The idea ... is to help people understand what they need for the job they want and what to expect in that job."
McDonald said he agrees that students need more help figuring out what they want to do, but they also need to be told what they need to do in order to get to where they want to be.
"I think that's part of the answer, if they know where they want to be headed and know what options they have, they will learn that because that's what they want to do," he said.
Concerning garnering more support from the community, Schlitt said the district needs to convince people that change can be a good thing.
"I think it's important to remember that change is OK, different directions are OK. The world is changing so much," she said.
"It's really important that Rhinelander doesn't forget about worldwide connections. So many times we get comfortable in our little box and we need to make sure that it's OK to think outside of that box. We need to stay on top of everything and not live in the past."
Holman agreed, noting the district needs to encourage honest, respectful debate in the community.
"That's the community debates I was talking about before. How do you get the community who doesn't buy into the 'good enough for me' idea to help change the culture?" he said.
"We need those debates. We need people talking to each other and sharing ideas."
Question 4
The final question asked what the district is doing well that should be continued.
Schneider said the district needs to continue to pay its teachers well so that it can retain the best of the best.
"Adequate pay for teachers needs to continue, so we can keep the best teachers," she said.
"The way teachers are treated now, I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it, but thankfully they do. We need them and we need to retain them."
Schlitt said the district needs to continue to put kids first.
"I really like how the school district puts its students first," she said.
"You've got a superintendent that's on different boards like Partners in Education to help get businesses in the schools and things like that. She's very involved in the community and that needs to continue. I value that."
Lastly, Urban said the district needs to keep all of its current options available to students, such as technology education and the wide variety of Advanced Placement courses currently offered.
"I think the diversity of options for students needs to continue so there continues to be technical education and AP opportunities," he said. "All of those things need to continue, including art and music and all of that. The diversity of the offerings needs to continue."
Future meetings
The district has three more meetings scheduled - May 27 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Crescent Elementary School, May 29 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Northwoods Community Elementary School and June 4 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the high school.
For more information on the meetings, dates and times, visit www.rhinelander.k12.wi.us/strategicplanning.cfm. There are also surveys on the site that can be completed.
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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