Reengagement a concern for district at PLC meetings

Carson City School District’s strategic plan continues to be fine-tuned to respond to community needs. But most of the educators who attended last week’s quarterly Professional Learning Community noticed a missing demographic that usually takes part in the conversations.

There were no parents not professionally affiliated with the district to help give their suggestions. The lack of parents caused the staff members and school board members to discuss how they could get more parent involvement for the 2023-24 school year.

During the May 3 session, Superintendent Andrew Feuling asked the staff members who attended to give their input on the strategies and success standards as a means of tracking their overall goals. The plan lists five goals — “Exceptional Staff,” “Curriculum That Matters,” “Engaged Parents and Families,” “Healthy Generations of Students” and “Community in Full Partnership” — that have each had their list of objectives or metrics adjusted as administrators sought the best methods for collecting data for a particular need.

For example, a success standard for “Curriculum That Matters” is listed as “50% of all high school graduates will receive a College and Career Ready (CCR) diploma.” A strategy might be to use information from various assessments, such as students’ Measured Academic Progress, Student Learning Goals, Measurable Instructional Units, learning portfolios, self-assessments and oral or written assessments to determine their strengths or weaknesses.

But Feuling told the group Wednesday it would be difficult to capture some data for some standards or benchmarks. He added that some of the figures or barometers aren’t even known in some instances, which is one challenge of the process.

“As a gauge, this is incredibly important in this process so that we can assure we are doing what the community has asked of us,” Feuling told the Appeal after the PLC meeting.

But getting more parents reengaged in these conversations has become a long-term concern for administrators and staff members. While many staff members are CCSD parents themselves, one of the goals of the PLCs has been to interact with community stakeholders at large.

“As a parent myself, I know people are very busy, and it’s difficult to continue stretching yourself but it clearly is something we have to figure out a strategy to make it more accessible,” Feuling said.

The strategic planning phase, although delayed somewhat due to the pandemic, was an opportunity to make this year a “rebuilding phase,” he said.

“I see it as a success where we’ve gotten a plan in place and where we have some measurements,” Feuling said. “Now it’s really a matter of moving forward. Now we see how are we bringing that information to the community where it’s digestible, to give us feedback where we’re bringing success … get engaged and get some fresh, innovative ideas.”