Over
the next several weeks meetings are being held in the School District
of the Menomonie Area to update our school district’s strategic plan and
continue “The Great Conversation”. School officials continue to engage
school district stakeholders in an effort to ensure that our resources
are well aligned with the expectations of our community. This week’s
column will focus on Learning Experience goals included in the plan.
The main objective of the Learning Experience portion
of our strategic plan has to do with improving academic outcomes for
all students and ensuring student engagement and achievement by
strengthening curriculum, instruction, assessment, and accountability
systems in the school district. Since the plan was first implemented in
2012, much has been accomplished in this area. New processes have been
established for reviewing and evaluating curriculum, professional
development for school district employees has been prioritized in many
areas, the new statewide educator effectiveness evaluation system has
been implemented, and teaching strategies have been updated to reflect
current best practices. Some of the new programs and strategies that
have been adopted by the school district include blended virtual
courses, multiage classrooms, looping teachers over multiple years with
particular groups of students, and early bird course offerings.
The next steps recommended in a recent meeting of the Learning Experience Action Team
include integrating more strategies to personalize learning experiences
for our students, implementing an optional language immersion program
at the elementary school level, and continuing work to improve the
consistency and effectiveness of curriculum and instruction in the area
of math. Other ambitious ideas discussed by the team include expanding
summer school programming to reduce the “summer slide”, and taking a
comprehensive look at the school district calendar to identify where
possible improvements could be made.
Recommendations from the teams working on other areas of the strategic plan will be included in upcoming editions of this School Crossings column.
Also, a summative report of all recommendations for updating the
strategic plan will be presented to the school board at a meeting
scheduled for 5:00 p.m. on Monday, November 24, 2014. Should anyone
wish to provide additional input, or if you are unable to attend the
scheduled meetings, please feel free to send your comments to my
attention at the Administrative Service Center located at 215 Pine
Avenue NE in Menomonie.