School Board Retreat

The Schools Board met in retreat with the senior staff today to discuss, primarily, the Strategic Plan. While I could easily list a couple dozen quibbles (I could, don't challenge me on this), the meeting was, for the greatest part actually productive and useful. They did some tangible work, but they also did some very important intangible work today. The group went a long way towards coming together as a team. That's critical if this plan is going to be successful.

In the morning and early afternoon they spoke about the Strategic Plan. It isn't bad, it has some focus, and the staff appears sincerely committed to performing an effective implementation. That's all you can hope for.

From the mid-afternoon on, the talk was about working together. It was more candid than I expected. Respectful, but candid.

Other than the staff and the meeting facilitators, the only other people there were me, Melissa, and Dean McColgan, one of the candidates for District IV. Karen Demerost from the Alliance, but she mostly did recordkeeping. She did not participate in the discussion any more than Melissa, Dean, or I did. That was good. Much of the Strategic Plan talk was about equity, communication, and retaining personnel. Most of the relationship talk was about trust and communication. I have some notes on specifics, but this is the big picture and it's a good picture.