In the month of June, our school board meeting occurred on
Monday, June 16th. The night
of meetings began with a Buildings and Grounds meeting where we are working on
a partnership with a local soccer club.
The soccer club is looking at giving a sizable donation to transform a
large empty tract of land on school property into a soccer field. There was quite a bit of interesting dialogue
that went along with this.
This then moved into our normal school board meeting proceedings. There are a number of items that are voted
on to begin the meetings. These range
from voucher summaries, donations, resignations, appointments, retirements, and
curriculum to name a few. From these
basic, monthly proceedings, there is not too much focus on continuous
improvement unless it is curriculum.
Each area of curriculum is on a five-year rotation, and a curriculum
committee reviews any curriculum that is written. Our school board takes a very hands-on
approach when it comes to reading and review of curriculum.
After this portion of the meeting, it then goes to
administrative reports and an update of our new Montessori charter school. When giving our administrative reports, our
reports are to focus on the four board goals that our school board has put on
administration. When writing up our
board reports on a monthly basis, and then speaking during the meetings, our
focus is to be what we have done or are doing during that month to address the
board goals.
We also have one board meeting a year, usually during the
summer months, where administrators will pull data together for the board, have
a data retreat, and present our building assessment, attendance, and discipline
data with the board. The board
identifies areas of strengths and improvements, address any curricular
questions, questions or provides suggestions for improvement, and also look at
new programs that are being run and assess their effectiveness. These are productive meetings and allows for
the good things that are going on in the buildings to be more public. It is also productive for the school board to
see numbers and data to provide information to them on the items that they have
supported. With the effort to write new
school board goals on a yearly basis, reporting on these goals monthly within
our Administrative reports, and holding data retreats, it would be very
difficult to say that our board’s focus is a negative, however there is still
improvements that could be made.
In looking to assess and delineate the three steps I would
take as a superintendent to improve the board’s focus on continuous
improvement, my first area of focus would be to make sure that our board and staff
have gone through training needed in the development of a continuous
improvement model. Being in my third
year as a principal, I know that there are staff and board members that may
have never heard of a continuous improvement models or know how this
works. If we are going to be a district
that continuously improves, then everyone needs to be aware of what is going on
and constantly seek to improve upon what we are currently doing.
The second area that I would focus on is making sure that we
are focusing on our customers/clients in designing and delivering our
services. Having the help and support
from the community and people that are active within the school and community
is very important in building positive relationships. The school district should be an image of the
community in which it resides, and this is very difficult to accomplish if the
community is not a part of the school
system. Soliciting support, feedback,
and advice from the community and having board members that are approachable
will help mold the school in the image of the community. Involving the community will make it much
easier when the community is needed for their support.
The final area of focus should be to practice problem
solving, prevention, and intervention rather than reaction to promote student
success. The mission of our school
district is “because children are our future.”
In my time with the district, I have seen and felt improvement in this
area, however I am aware that there is more work to be done. If we are going to have a mission statement
as stated above, then as administration and staff it is imperative that we are
proactive with our assistance with students rather than being reactive.
