Cassville R-IV moves forward with strategic planning
April 18, 2018
Charlea Estes-Jones
Over the past three months, Cassville R-IV School District has engaged the community in strategic planning for different areas in the school. As those meetings concluded for the year with a summary meeting on Monday evening, April 16, Dr. Richard Asbill, superintendent, says staff will be using that feedback to make changes for the coming school year.
Dr. Asbill said, “We started this three years ago. The initial catalyst for this was looking at a couple of things. Jill LeCompte and I were reviewing our district performance and looking at areas where we could see some trends where we weren’t making the desired improvement in those areas or in taking the next progressive steps on evaluating technology and evaluating different course options in the middle school or high school. We needed to take a more progressive role in moving Cassville from where we are to where we want to be.”
He said it was at that point they brought teachers into a committee to evaluate what areas they would seek improvement or evaluate progress. Dr. Asbill said, “We looked at what are we doing really well in and what areas do we need to improve. We spent weeks defining those two pieces which led us to a variety of goals.”
The teacher committee essentially decided on five areas: Personalized Learning, School Readiness and Instruction, Curriculum and Instruction, College and Career Readiness, and Parent and Community Engagement.
The school then invited parents, students, community members and business members to engage in committee discussions on how the school is doing in those areas and how they would improve. The meetings were monthly and each committee head turned in a synopsis to help the school move forward.
Dr. Asbill said those findings are now going into summer planning for the upcoming school year. He said some of the suggestions will be seen in the upcoming 2018-2019 school year whereas others are more long-term goals.
“It’s important to engage parents in conversations of where we are and where we are headed and where we need to be,” Asbill stated.
“We’ve made some of the shift already just with our school calendar. We are embedding student data time within the school calendar. We are changing the way we are doing parent teacher conferences.
“We expect that we will approach many things differently. Some will be systematic differences and some won’t be. We will still transport students and feed breakfast and lunch: those that are core to going to school, but there are some operation and instructional things that will have to change next year just from the feedback we got.”
As the school makes changes based on feedback from those meetings, Dr. Asbill said that the engagement won’t end there. “We have to build bridges to meet what parents and the community expects and what we are doing.
“We have to be authentic enough to say that’s a great idea, now this is how we are going to put that into place.”
At the summary meeting, Asbill mentioned multiple times the move to ask questions about the school in a different way, and not cater to the average, but rather grow and change as society progresses. He said, “It’ll look different, but we want them to be part of that because that’s the next model of success for kids.”
As far as specific examples for changes parents to see, the biggest immediate change will be a shift in parent-teacher conferences. “We do really well at involving parents in that they can come to music events, open houses, speech and debate and that thing.
“We don’t do as well engaging parents in decision making and this is how we are going to start the year, continue the year and end the year with your child.”
One proposed solution is a beginning of the year conference to set expectations of the school year and give parents a better understanding of what their child will be learning, then do other conferences to provide updates.
Dr. Asbill said, “We have to be progressive enough to stay in tune with developing our students to be college and career ready, but that also means to engage our parents in different conversations of what is different from when they were in school.
“That’s going to be a shift for some educators: moving from what we are comfortable with to something that could be better and may require additional effort and work, which is important.”
Asbill concluded, “We just want to apply the effort and expanding things and being a part of that.” More meetings will continue to take place in the new school year as the school implements changes to the five areas discussed in committees.
Charlea Estes-Jones
Over the past three months, Cassville R-IV School District has engaged the community in strategic planning for different areas in the school. As those meetings concluded for the year with a summary meeting on Monday evening, April 16, Dr. Richard Asbill, superintendent, says staff will be using that feedback to make changes for the coming school year.
Dr. Asbill said, “We started this three years ago. The initial catalyst for this was looking at a couple of things. Jill LeCompte and I were reviewing our district performance and looking at areas where we could see some trends where we weren’t making the desired improvement in those areas or in taking the next progressive steps on evaluating technology and evaluating different course options in the middle school or high school. We needed to take a more progressive role in moving Cassville from where we are to where we want to be.”
He said it was at that point they brought teachers into a committee to evaluate what areas they would seek improvement or evaluate progress. Dr. Asbill said, “We looked at what are we doing really well in and what areas do we need to improve. We spent weeks defining those two pieces which led us to a variety of goals.”
The teacher committee essentially decided on five areas: Personalized Learning, School Readiness and Instruction, Curriculum and Instruction, College and Career Readiness, and Parent and Community Engagement.
The school then invited parents, students, community members and business members to engage in committee discussions on how the school is doing in those areas and how they would improve. The meetings were monthly and each committee head turned in a synopsis to help the school move forward.
Dr. Asbill said those findings are now going into summer planning for the upcoming school year. He said some of the suggestions will be seen in the upcoming 2018-2019 school year whereas others are more long-term goals.
“It’s important to engage parents in conversations of where we are and where we are headed and where we need to be,” Asbill stated.
“We’ve made some of the shift already just with our school calendar. We are embedding student data time within the school calendar. We are changing the way we are doing parent teacher conferences.
“We expect that we will approach many things differently. Some will be systematic differences and some won’t be. We will still transport students and feed breakfast and lunch: those that are core to going to school, but there are some operation and instructional things that will have to change next year just from the feedback we got.”
As the school makes changes based on feedback from those meetings, Dr. Asbill said that the engagement won’t end there. “We have to build bridges to meet what parents and the community expects and what we are doing.
“We have to be authentic enough to say that’s a great idea, now this is how we are going to put that into place.”
At the summary meeting, Asbill mentioned multiple times the move to ask questions about the school in a different way, and not cater to the average, but rather grow and change as society progresses. He said, “It’ll look different, but we want them to be part of that because that’s the next model of success for kids.”
As far as specific examples for changes parents to see, the biggest immediate change will be a shift in parent-teacher conferences. “We do really well at involving parents in that they can come to music events, open houses, speech and debate and that thing.
“We don’t do as well engaging parents in decision making and this is how we are going to start the year, continue the year and end the year with your child.”
One proposed solution is a beginning of the year conference to set expectations of the school year and give parents a better understanding of what their child will be learning, then do other conferences to provide updates.
Dr. Asbill said, “We have to be progressive enough to stay in tune with developing our students to be college and career ready, but that also means to engage our parents in different conversations of what is different from when they were in school.
“That’s going to be a shift for some educators: moving from what we are comfortable with to something that could be better and may require additional effort and work, which is important.”
Asbill concluded, “We just want to apply the effort and expanding things and being a part of that.” More meetings will continue to take place in the new school year as the school implements changes to the five areas discussed in committees.