Community members discuss future of Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools at strategic plan review

Prior Lake American

Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools should collaborate with families, support staff and enable students feel excited to learn, community members told the district Thursday evening.

More than 130 students, staff, parents and residents met for four hours at Prior Lake High School to provide input and direction for the Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools’ goals for the coming years. The district’s running strategic plan guides the tens of millions of dollars the district spends on educational programs and services every year.

Thursday’s feedback will be compiled by a consultant and given the district to determine what, if any, changes could be made to the plan in the future.

“I really do believe as a district, we live the strategic plan,” Superintendent Dr. Teri Staloch said. “It is the focus of our work, and I’m very proud of that, and I hope we’ve earned the trust of the community that we are committed to what our strategic plan calls us to do.”

Recommendations will be brought before the Prior Lake-Savage Area School Board for approval after a review by an administration team.

“I’m really excited to see the compilation of the data and see how it will inform our next steps,” Staloch said.

The strategic plan started in 2003 after the school board directed the district to come up with mission, vision and belief statements and objectives, parameters and strategies to meet those goals. District officials have expanded and revised it since.

Its strategy includes six areas of focus: increasing student growth and achievement, continuing financial accountability while educating students, expanding innovative programming, expanding and embedding an environmental focus, integrating technology and increasing capacity for 21st century skills, and engaging stakeholders and the overall community to “strengthen a culture of respect and inclusion.”

Attendees offered multiple hopes and suggestions for students, families and staff. For desired experiences of students, for instance, several said students should feel safe, excited to learn, able to learn on an individual level, independent, important and connected. Many also said they wanted families to be partners in a child’s education, communication and collaboration from the district and confidence in the education children receive.

In terms of staff, respondents said they hope there are enough resources to do the job and get training, that there is support from the district and community and that there is freedom in the job.

Attendees overall agreed the future strategic plan should keep the 22nd century in mind as opposed to the just 21st, integrating technology rapidly as it develops and meeting the social and emotional needs of students.

“I’m confident we will have some recommendations that come to the board for approval,” Staloch said.

Staloch said the format of the review, which was “borrowed” from the city of Prior Lake’s strategic plan review in October 2017, was the “most transparent way to do this.”

“It’s been a highly successful night, so I don’t know why we wouldn’t do this again,” Staloch said. “I don’t know why we wouldn’t do this again. I think the question would be how often do you pull together a big group like this?”

The meeting began with an overview of the district’s goals and accomplishments so far, including the Operational Plan and Priority Work for 2018-19 that was approved by the Prior Lake-Savage Area School Board in June 2018.

Each area of focus has goals for the district to work on throughout the year, with some goals farther along than others at this point, Staloch and other district officials said.

For increasing measurable student growth and achievement, the district has goals to provide student-centered learning based on best practices, for example, and to close achievement gaps among students and develop a comprehensive literacy system for all grades.

“This is really the hallmark of focusing on kids and the experiences they’re having in school,” Assistant Superintendent Jeff Holmberg said.

While the goals align in part to what the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments are looking for, Superintendent Dr. Teri Staloch said the district is focusing on standard-based learning, focusing on whether or not a student understands a concept rather than if the assignment was just completed. In addition to experiences that occur solely in the classroom, Holmberg said there are more than 70 co-curricular activities available to students to round out growth and achievement.

For continuing financial accountability while educating students, the district plans to have a long-range planning model with budget trends and assumptions.

The district has a total budget of $97 million and a construction fund of $110 million, Business Services Executive Director Julie Cink said. Voters also approved a $109.3 million referendum in November 2017 that will be used for various construction projects in the district, including a new elementary school to reduce class sizes on the elementary level.

In expanding innovative programming, the district’s goal is to have stakeholders participate in proposing innovative ideas to enhancing learning, engagement and efficiencies.

The goals for expanding and embedding environment focus across the district include having a comprehensive plan to implement computer science and coding skills for students and having an internal audit of environment and sustainable practices. For integrating technology and increasing 21st century skills, the district has a goal to have a comprehensive plan for efficiency and effectiveness of communication tools with expectation of usage.

“We need to think about how to prepare students in our schools for jobs that we have no idea will even exist yet,” Staloch said. “We know right now, it’s most important to teach students how to learn.”

For the final strategic direction of engaging stakeholders to strengthen a culture of respect and inclusion, the goal is to have input from the community on district work, data, programs and practices — a goal partly fulfilled by the meeting on Thursday, Staloch said.