School District Planning Questions
for teachers, families, community members
1. To provide the highest quality education to all CRCSD students, what challenges will the district have to address as it plans for the future?
· Parental involvement
· Multi-age support
· Vertically & horizontally: poverty, early childhood interventions, alignment of curriculum standards & assessment, parental involvement
· Class size
· Budget cuts
· Economic & racial diversity
· Decrease in district training
· Images of public schools
· Diversity & population
· Boundaries
· Kindergarten schools separated
· Early Childhood Education
· Budget
· Early Childhood Education
· Parental involvement
· Technology skills for students/staff
· Adequate staffing (fulltime media, specials teachers, Para staff, etc.)
· Closing the achievement gap
· Alignment across the district - standards/benchmark/report cards
· Communication from district level to buildings
· Timely professional development
· Meet needs of early childhood students
· Continue to meet the criteria of national standards
· Funding
· Adequate staff support
2. List the most important skills or talents CRCSD students will need to be successful adults in our society.
· Problem solvers
· Literacy skills
· Technology skills
· Responsibility
· Acceptance of diversity
· Read!
· Working together in a group
· Strong value system
· Self concept of a life-long learner
· Personal responsibility
· Responsible
· Motivation to learn
· Ability to read & write
· Accountability
· Social Skills
· Communication
· Tolerance-respect-global living
· Being able to adjust to situation with appropriate behavior
· Attitude
· Literacy/Math
· Social Skills - Accountability/Responsibility
· Technology Skills
· Collaboration
· Responsibility
· Citizenship
· Reading
· Math
· Social Skills
3. What evidence (scores, information, reports, exhibits, etc.) would convince you that CRC SD is providing the highest quality education for resources expended?
· Involved/active/interested students
· Performance based assessments
· Standardized test scores
· Dropout rate/ graduation rate
· Tracking of students beyond graduation
· ITBS
· District testing
· Community fine arts exhibits
· Building behavior reports
· District assessment
· Meeting benchmarks (or exceed)
· City-wide involvement
· Decrease in drop out rate
· Student output reflects connections between disciplines
· Improvement of scores for minority students
· Data that demonstrates improvement between home & school/especially at risk families
· Kindergarten readiness skills improvement
4. What priorities should CRC SD focus on in the development of financial plans and budgets?
· Increased teacher pay (many of our teachers have masters and doctorate degrees)
· Less change in curriculum
· More support for the curriculum we are using. Ex: Money for supplies to teach curriculum and staff development of that curriculum.
· Hire more teachers to lower the number of special Ed students on rosters and regular Ed students on rosters.
· Hire full time IMC teachers for each building.
· Technology is vital!
· Money to support action research
· Class size
· A clean, healthy environment
· Class size
· Teaching the whole child (retaining art, music, drama, PE, technology, extra curricular activities)
· Look at greatest needs and then support
· Don't waste money on curriculum just to purchase
· Funding to attend in-services during the day
Teacher salary
· Keep well-being of student at top, ex: teacher-student ratio
· Keep wide range of programs available to students
· Building upkeep and expansion
· Early childhood education/early intervention
· Closing the achievement gap/adequate staffing
· Competitive salaries & benefits to attract & retain excellent teachers
· Continue to update technology
· Adequate staff allocation
· Staff development
· Building maintenance/updating
· Competitive salary
5. What would CRCSD have to do to provide a high level of satisfaction to you as a customer of the district?
· Alignment of school boundaries
· Provide safe schools
· Provide excellent education for students/full ability levels including low performing and gifted students
· Provide excellent education for students/full ability levels including low performing and gifted students
· Show evidence of achievement
· Communicate with the public
· Salary
· Smaller class size
· Alignment of curriculum and report cards
· Downtown support into the schools
· Knowledge of each school from downtown
· Quality in-services
· Respecting time after 4:00 (expectations to attend after 4:00 is difficult)
· Competitive salaries
· District support (training, custodial, financial, acknowledge schools have unique needs)
· Lower class size
· Reinstate art, music, PE, IMC service
· Invest in ALL students
· Support in extended learning programs (before and after school)
· Clean learning environments (building improvements)
6. Please offer any other comments for the CRCSD leadership to consider as we plan for the future.
· Build teacher morale
· District leaders need to communicate with legislative leader because "Iowa's face is changing"
· We are losing a lot of families to private schools - what is this saying to us?
· How do we teach this changing population?
· We appreciate that you are forming a plan for the future of our district
· Increase number of staff and diversity in staff
· Staff development
· Support from administration
· Alignment of report cards with benchmarks