School board reviews district goals

With the new school year officially underway, Creston Community School District has a number of goals to keep students and staff going strong.

During the August school board meeting, superintendent Deron Stender shared this year’s goals with the board.

“So, three categories, about two to three action items underneath each goal,” Stender said. “We started with the administrative team, really dug into data. We identified anything anybody thought was a problem in the district or a strength in the district.”

The three categories covered in the district goals are “culture, instruction and student achievement,” “facilities and finance” and “community and state partnerships.” The biggest goals for general staff fell under the first category.

“The first one is to strengthen district MTSS. That’s Multi-Tiered Structures of Support,” Stender said. “People probably think it’s special ed. OK, there is an area of emphasis that does get put on special ed, but all kids are general ed students. What are we doing to make sure that we’re providing for them? What are we doing to make sure that every kid’s needs are being met in terms of academics, interventions, what support we have in place to make sure they’re successful with that.”

Stender explained with this goal, while there may be certain positions to help with special ed, ELL, etc, it’s everyone’s job to help all students.

“They are all our kids, they are all our responsibility,” Stender said.

The other major goal focused on how to improve district culture, specifically working with parents and the community in doing this.

“All of these are pretty much community inclusive. Family engaged, staff engaged, everybody has ownership and responsibility,” Stender said. “Build positive relationships and realized positive interactions. Educate and support all student, staff and parents about positive behaviors: mental health, trauma, executive functioning. As a district, share clear and consistent expectations and consequences for behavior and attendance.”

The other two categories of goals are more for the district and administration to focus on throughout the year. Under “facilities and finance,” the goals are to provide a safe learning environment, conduct a facilities review while engaging and collaborating with the community to develop a long-ran facility plan and to maintain sound fiscal management.

The third category is an ongoing effort, according to Stender. “Community and state partnerships, we’re going to keep working on that. Engaging with community and state partners to support public schools and to communicate with our legislators to make sure they’re supporting public education,” he said.

Throughout the year, small teams of teachers and staff will work on each of these goals to help move them forward.

“That’s part of that team strategy,” ECC and elementary principal Callie Anderson said. “They have to make those steps when they get together. So instead of one person taking on all six of those, that’s why we divided it out because it will be that team’s job to come up with those action steps and those measures.”

Progress on these goals and the actions under them will be communicated to the school board each month at the monthly school board meetings.