Carson City school board revises strategic plan

The Carson City School Board on Tuesday approved revisions to its strategic plan, “Empower Carson City 2027,” to provide updated metrics on two of its goals to help increase accountability.

Discussions about the district’s strategic plan at quarterly Professional Learning Community meetings and how to measure growth for the specific goals — Exceptional Staff, Curriculum That Matters, Engaged Parents and Families, Healthy Generations of Students and Community in Full Partnership — help guide educators.

“My goal, ultimately, is this is a place to start and it may not be perfect, and nothing is ever going to be perfect, but we can start getting our procedures and systems in place where we can start gather these things,” Superintendent Andrew Feuling said Tuesday.

Trustee Mike Walker said he was concerned that the strategic plan, intended to be a living document that guides long-term objectives, could end up being more burdensome on employees. Some of its goals involve data collection to show results, such as improvement in average daily attendance rates from 90.6% to 93%. Metrics such as these are already being recorded in compliance with state or federal regulations. Others, Walker said, might not need such strict monitoring.

“We can collect data without getting into the weeds and making tons of work for you,” Walker said.

Feuling said he appreciated Walker’s consideration.

“Maybe it’s not a perfect way and maybe it’s a cumbersome way to generate data, but I think it will force conversations amongst this board that will help me in my hopeful advocacy to reduce some of the nonsense our staff has to go through for the purposes of accountability,” Feuling said.

Trustee Joe Cacioppo said tracking some metrics and defining the district’s success through the plan is useful, asking what might be considered lofty if community members read a 10% increase on a particular metric, for example.

Tasha Fuson, associate superintendent of educational services, said objectives from the state often appear to be grand but also can change from year to year.

“I think if we’re going to hold our schools accountable, we want to not create so many goals they’re trying to reach that they lose sight of what it is they need to do,” Fuson said.

Board members said it’s important to have a robust strategic plan to explain to families and community members about the district’s educational goals, how to overcome changing opinions about chronic absenteeism and to help explain why their child’s performance contributes to the NSPF and ratings.

“I think it’s going to help us, having a strategic plan, where we are engaging with the community and we can start addressing and change the perception about school attendance,” Walker said. “It’s almost like punishing schools for things they can’t control. This gives us an avenue in with the community to say, ‘Listen, we understand things happen, but your child’s education is super important.’”

The motion to approve the revisions to the CCSD’s strategic plan were approved 7-0. A metric document will be added as a supplement.