The Special Board of Education Meeting on Tuesday, July 12th began at 4:00 pm with much conversation on the proposed five year strategic plan for the school district.
Dr. Corbin Witt, Superintendent, shared the five year “Strategic Objectives and Organization Goals”.
“The more consistency you have, the better; i
t allows us to focus more,” said Witt.
Witt expressed that the plan would be a collaborative set of goals for both the District and the Board.
The plan, which focus on six main categories with supplemental goals supporting each, was bookmarked for discussion at the Tuesday evening meeting. Witt suggested having time to review it and plan a motion for the next meeting.
The categories in the goals include:
- High Student Achievement
- Effective and Valuble Communication
- Highly Effective Staff
- Maximized Resources
- Culture of Shared Responsibility and Effective Partnerships with Families, Communities and Businesses
- Safe, Sustainable, Healthy, and Respectful School Community
A culture vs. climate battle ensued at the meeting, when trying to agree on the goals and the message being sent across the district.
“We hire staff that fit the culture of the district,” said Witt in response to the objection of the use of the word culture in the goal: Create an engaging and welcoming school district culture where our diverse students, stafff, parents, and cimmunity members feel valued, respected and included.
Witt went on to further state that [they] didn’t want to hire people who would potentially change the culture.
Tom Brungardt, Board member, objected to that stating, “New people can mold a culture…if you hire people to fit the culture there is no growth.”
Brungardt went on to say that creating a culture is like manipulating peope to make them feel like they’re comfortable; but climate is something that can’t be created.”
The specifics on the word usage in this goal and others were also bookmarked for the next meeting.