Board members plan for future

Mike Swanson

The Board of Education met early Aug. 22 at Hotel Laguna and stayed

late for a biannual retreat in which the board members laid out lofty

goals for their district in the upcoming school year.

One member, Bob Whalen, spent his Saturday after the retreat

developing a list of data-oriented goals to help the board and the

district improve students’ success.

“I’m not quite grabbing everything we came up with that day,”

Whalen said Tuesday. “I heard quite a few good ideas, but it’d be

helpful as a district to develop a form of data to be referenced that

backs up our ideas.”

Whalen split his suggestions into two sections: A list of 17

figures focusing on students’ progress to be collected and reported

to the board at every August retreat, and a list of eight aims to

improve upon the 17 figures.

Suggested data included a list of colleges being attended by the

graduating class, along with the percentages attending two- and

four-year schools; average SAT scores from the previous year and

ranking among county high schools; the percentage of students deemed

physically unfit by grade level; the number of students retained at

each grade level; the percentage of English as a second language

students by grade not yet fluent in English; and by subject area, the

number of students receiving Ds or Fs.

Whalen offered 11 more suggestions, with his second list primarily

pointing out actions to either increase or decrease the students’

numbers to a more favorable level. The most specific action suggested

is to agree upon a grade level by which all returning English as a

second language students should be fluent in English.

“By collecting this data into one short document, we would have,

and could offer to the community, an executive summary of our status

as a district with, as we move forward, year-to-year comparisons,”

Whalen said in his proposal.

The board and district staff supported keeping Whalen’s

suggestions in mind as the new school year starts, and Supt. Theresa

Daem said she’d like to introduce them to the district’s leadership

team for discussion.

When talking about the whole child, Assistant Supt. Steven Keller

said, there is a quantitative aspect, but he didn’t go into detail

about any of Whalen’s specific suggestions.

Whalen called his proposal “one man’s view” at the board meeting.

Another view Tuesday, which she admitted involved no handouts and

probably wasn’t quite as thought out, came from board member Jan

Vickers:

“I really want us to make progress with music and foreign

languages,” she said. “We always say we’re addressing it to younger

students, but I’d like to see more of it.”

Tuesday morning, after a half-hour presentation that addressed

“Where We Were (1998), Where We Are (2003-04) and Where We Are Going

(The Vision),” the board and staff described and discussed the year’s

goals until about 4 p.m. They were:

“Goal One: Quality Construction Program -- Tour of Sites,” “Goal

Two: Strategic Budgeting Plan -- Designing the Process,” “Goal Three:

Quest for Excellence -- Presentation of California Healthy Kids

Survey,” “Goal Four: Superb Schools -- Concept Presentation and

Discussion,” and “Goal Five: Promote Students and Their

Accomplishments -- Designing the Process.”

The new school year starts Thursday.