BW’s 2012-13 District Work Plan delivered

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Dur­ing Mon­day evening’s Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing, dis­trict super­in­ten­dent Steve Mazzi teamed up with Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­mic Achieve­ment Angie Pol­lock to deliver Big Walnut’s 2012–13 Dis­trict Work Plan.

Mazzi said the Dis­trict Work Plan was devel­oped dur­ing the annual board retreat, and includes goals and activ­i­ties for the school year ahead.

“We tried to fol­low our mis­sion and vision, but our work plan is always a work in progress,” Mazzi said. “We have to be flex­i­ble as we move through the year, and adapt the plan as we get more information.”

The cur­rent school year work plan has four major com­po­nents: Improve Aca­d­e­mic Achieve­ment; Improve Com­mu­ni­ca­tions; Plan for Growth; and, Finan­cial Responsibility.

Pol­lock said the pri­mary goal of Aca­d­e­mic Achieve­ment is to pro­vide a smooth tran­si­tion to the new Com­mon Core Stan­dards and Revised Ohio Aca­d­e­mic Con­tent Stan­dards that have to be in place by the begin­ning of the 2014–15 school year.

“We’ve acquired new lit­er­acy mate­ri­als for the ele­men­tary build­ings, and we’re explor­ing dig­i­tal options, includ­ing Bring Your Own Tech­nol­ogy,” Pol­lock said. “The dis­trict will also inte­grate tech­nol­ogy edu­ca­tion across the dis­trict, and improve assess­ment and sub­se­quent inter­ven­tion prac­tices for all students.”

Pol­lock also said that the admin­is­tra­tion would ask board mem­bers to for­mally adopt the new aca­d­e­mic stan­dards in the spring.

Mazzi said Com­mu­ni­ca­tions is an ongo­ing issue.

“There are always com­plaints that the admin­is­tra­tion and board are not com­mu­ni­cat­ing ade­quately with the com­mu­nity, but we are bound by not being able to hire a full-time com­mu­ni­ca­tions staff mem­ber,” Mazzi said. “We try to do every­thing we can. It’s a never end­ing bal­ance to get com­mu­ni­ca­tions out there and get the com­mu­nity what they want, but we still get neg­a­tive feed­back that we’re not com­mu­ni­cat­ing enough.”

Mazzi said the school dis­trict com­mu­ni­cates with the com­mu­nity it serves in a vari­ety of ways, includ­ing inter­fac­ing with the local media, all-calls and infor­ma­tion sent home with stu­dents, post­ings on the dis­trict web­site, and infor­ma­tion dis­bursed through local school and com­mu­nity groups.

Mazzi said the Plan for Growth com­po­nent of the work plan is now more com­monly referred to as Facil­i­ties Planning.

“The administration’s move from the Galena build­ing to the inter­me­di­ate school in Sun­bury is a per­fect exam­ple of Facil­i­ties Plan­ning,” Mazzi said. “Expend­ing money on the Galena build­ing was not in the best long-term inter­ests of the dis­trict. I’ve said it before — tak­ing care of a school dis­trict is no dif­fer­ent than tak­ing care of a house, times 100; if you don’t take care of it today, you end up pay­ing more tomorrow.”

Mazzi said the Plan for Growth objec­tives are to uti­lize cur­rent facil­i­ties effec­tively, study enroll­ment pro­jec­tions to plan for future growth, pro­vide qual­ity equip­ment and mate­ri­als for stu­dents and staff, and hire and retain qual­ity staff.

Pol­lock added that tech­nol­ogy needs falls under the head­ing of qual­ity equipment.

“We need to con­tinue to make sure our machines are not falling apart,” Pol­lock said. “And we need to make sure teach­ers have the cur­ric­u­lar mate­ri­als they need to teach the new standards.”

Mazzi said Finan­cial Respon­si­bil­ity and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions are closely tied together.

“To be finan­cially respon­si­ble we need to be as trans­par­ent as pos­si­ble,” Mazzi said. “This includes monthly finan­cial reports and five-year fore­casts on the dis­trict web­site, and a pos­si­ble quar­terly or monthly newsletter.”

Mazzi said the Ohio Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion rec­om­mends that school dis­tricts estab­lish a for­mal cash bal­ance pol­icy requir­ing 30 to 60 days cash on hand – for Big Wal­nut that’s $4.6 million.

The dis­trict admin­is­tra­tion will also ana­lyze any expen­di­ture in excess of $5,000, estab­lish a long-term cap­i­tal improve­ments pol­icy for build­ings and grounds, review build­ing and dis­trict bud­gets, cre­ate a needs-based bud­get, and be account­able for expen­di­tures com­pared with benefits.

Posted by Gary Henery on Sep 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.