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School board OKs 5-year strategic plan

MARSHALL — One of the four action items approved by the Marshall School Board at its regular meeting on Monday was a working draft of the new five-year strategic plan.

“It’s sort of a summary document called a governance document,” Marshall Superintendent Scott Monson said. “The Minnesota School Boards Association — the strategic planning division — assisted us with this in terms of an action plan. That started with input from students, staff, administration — you, as a school board, conducted an activity that funneled its way into the strategic plan as well. We also had a parent and community input session.”

Monson said all of the information gathered was rolled forward to a strategic planning advisory committee.

“That committee met three times over, I think, two plus months,” he said. “There were 34 or 35 members and we had good attendance. We had some great discussions.”

The strategic plan highlights the district’s 10 belief statements. Marshall Public Schools believes:

• A diverse and inclusive environment enriches the individual, school and community.

• All students can learn at high levels.

• All students should be offered an education developed to meet their individual needs.

• Data-driven processes produce decisions focused on results.

• Education must address the cognitive, physical, emotional and social needs of students.

• In a safe, respectful and trusting environment.

• In embracing a collaborative approach to lifelong learning for students, teachers, parents and the community.

• In the Marshall community to support and embrace our educational mission.

• In the value of building and maintaining strong community partnerships.

• In the value of every student and that relationships are the foundations of successful schools.

Some of those statements are reiterated in the new mission statement: “The mission of the Marshall Public School District is the educate, support and prepare all learners for success.” The vision statement reveals that MPS strives “to be the premier school district where every student is inspired every day.”

The 2017-2022 strategic plan also includes six focus areas and 10 goals. Enrollment and marketing is one of the focus areas. The goal listed is to have a multifaceted communication plan that effectively engages parents and community stakeholders to promote the quality education programs provided by the district. One of the three objectives includes investigating the possibility of creating a communications director position.

“Part of the work of the strategic planning advisory committee was to take all of the input and try to take a look at needs, and certainly strengths, in the school district relative to six areas and translate our needs into goals and objectives,” Monson said.

Student achievement and student support is another identified focus area. Along with achieving the goals of the World’s Best Workforce for all students, increasing the academic achievement of all students through effective instruction, a challenging and engaging curriculum and aligned assessments is marked as one of the three goals. The third includes identifying barriers to learning and providing intervention and support.

In regards to a technology focus, there is a goal to maximize the use of technology to enhance the work of staff and increase the academic achievement of students. Another focus area is the district’s workforce. Goals are to develop and implement practices to attract and retain a diverse and qualified teaching staff as well as identify, recruit, develop and retain excellent staff.

“The next steps from here, we’ll need to do some prioritizing of the 10 goals,” Monson said. “t think it’s important to know that we’re not going to accomplish these things — at least all of them — in one year.

We’re probably going to want to identify and do some prioritizing — what are the most-pressing goals — and then focus on two each year for the next five years.”

Once goals have been prioritized, Monson said action plans will be developed for each of the objectives as they relate to the goals.

“That will be a series of input processes, if you will, and several revisions will need to take place,” he said. “It’s meant to be a working draft, so we may need to make changes to it in the future.”

A second action item approved by the board was the authorization of board approved referendum authority. The new board approved referendum authority in the amount of $300 per adjusted pupil unit will be applicable for five years, beginning with taxes payable in 2018.

“In 2014, there was a conversion, a change, in regards to operating referendum funding, where the state took over a great majority of the operating referendum funding, at least for the Marshall School District,” MPS Business Director Bruce Lamprecht said. “The local optional revenue was brought forward. We are on the last year now of that $300 amount — taxes payable in 2017, which are for the 2017-18 school year — and now we need to renew that.”

By law, school boards can approve up to $300 and that’s what is recommended, Lamprecht added.

“We’ve consulted with Ehlers and Associates and that’s what they’re recommending also — the renewal of $300 for board-approved operating referendum funding,” Lamprecht said. “That also coincides with the $424 of local optional revenue, making it $724.”

In his administrator report, Monson highlighted the latest in student enrollment statistics and projections. A total of 2,456 students were funded during the 2016-17 school year — a school year that marked the sixth straight year the district had increased student enrollment.

According to projections, MPS is anticipating an increase of 41 students, which would push enrollment up to nearly 2,500 students.

“We will need to dedicate attention to verifying those figures between now and next month,” Monson said.

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