Last Monday’s work session for the Great Bend USD 428 Board of Education wasn’t business as usual.

There was nothing to vote on and no decisions were made. Instead, board members spent three hours with a “leadership field specialist” from the Kansas Association of School Boards who guided them through exercises that will help the board write a new mission statement and a new vision statement (or decide to keep the old ones) and set goals for the next five years. 

The board had a little fun, with some good-natured ribbing and even some discussion about the high price of turkey mixed in with some serious brainstorming. At the time, the board members also had a summary of a recent survey that went out to USD 428 parents and staff. It was answered by 229 staff members, 276 parents, three students and six other community members. This survey looked at previous goals that the board ranked as priorities, and asked how important these goals are to people in the community – and how well the school district has achieved its goals.

For example, one goal is to increase achievement for all students at all levels. This ranked nearly 80% on the “importance” scale and the “achievement” scale looks to be around 65%. More than 100 responses included comments on future considerations within the realm of this goal. Some suggestions were “strong core classes” and “get back to basics so students understand the fundamentals!” One suggestion aimed at high school students said “more everyday life skills; money, shopping, etc.”

There were requests to pay teachers more, reduce class sizes and focus on student growth instead of state testing. “Stop putting so much focus on progress monitoring,” one respondent said. Other the other hand, another response appeared to support more education on assessing. Did this person mean the people doing the assessments need more education, or that parents should be taught what the assessments mean and how they are used to help the students?

One responder simply wanted to know what the goal of increased “student achievement” even means. “Is it a grade or quality of learning experience? Two completely different things.”

Another goal the board set as important was to provide optimum technology for teaching and learning. This was above 70% on the respondents’ importance scale and they felt the district was achieving this at the level of about 67%. There was one respondent who simply is “not a fan of all the technology teaching our students. A book, a pen, and some paper do wonders sometimes.” Others agreed that “technology is relied on too heavily. I don’t want my kid plugged into a screen all day.” But most responded that the district is on track. They want continued training for teachers on how to use the technology. As one said, “increase the diversity of technology available for students and teachers to use.”

All answers, from the general to the specific, will be weighed by our elected school board members. They also spent some time ranking their priorities this past Monday.

One takeaway from the meeting was that the district HAS implemented new strategies to meet its goals and maybe staff and board members need to spend more time making sure the community at large is aware of what they do. The pandemic hurt students in many ways, not the least of which was isolating them from others. Getting back together, getting volunteers and parents back into the schools, and expecting everyone to give education a wholehearted effort will do wonders.

At Monday’s work session, the board was encouraged to set “wildly important goals” and to say how those goals will be reached. According to the authors who coined that term, wildly important goals are “the few, highly important goals that must be achieved or no other goal matters.” We look forward to seeing what comes of this.