This is Part 3 of 4 of a series about what it has been like so far as a board member of the Hollister School District.
In a couple of weeks the governing board of the Hollister School District will hold a special board meeting to determine what its goals are. It is an extremely important exercise. If we take it seriously and do it smartly, we will put Hollister schools on a path to continued success.
Every decision we make is attached to a goal to rationalize the time and the real costs involved. Therefore, we have to have high-quality criteria to measure progress against. When a District has vague language around goals that are just warm & fuzzy ideas, the community can end up with schools that may be warm & fuzzy, but not necessarily focused on student achievement.
The current goals of the Hollister School District are:
- All Hollister School District students will be high achievers
- All schools will be composed of collaborative teams whose members work interdependently to achieve common, student-centered goals for which members are mutually accountable
- Technology and innovation will support educational programs for diverse learners
- All schools will provide safe and positive environments
The problem with those goals is the first one is not specific or realistic, and the others are not actual goals in terms of obtaining student achievement, and are not specific. Collectively, they are warm & fuzzy.
I believe the goals of the Hollister School District should be:
- X% of students will meet or exceed state standards by 2021 with annual progress of Y% between now and then.
Keying the school district’s academic goals to how the state requires us to teach, test, and report on the students makes measuring our effectiveness less complicated and more accurate. It also puts us in alignment with what parents and the state looks at to measure how a student is doing.
X and Y have to be defined after consideration of the recent state and county-wide test results published recently have been analyzed and compared to the Hollister School District before we know what is a reasonable goal in regard to this.
- There will be 0 incidents of violent incidences, 0 prohibited items, and 0 injury accidents on our campuses.
You may be asking, how we can be absolute with this goal and not on academic achievement? Because this goal involves behavior that is in the students and the employees control.
- The District will be fiscally solvent and have financial reserves of at least X%.
Like all public schools, the Hollister School District is facing significantly increasing headwinds with higher pension costs and increased costly regulations coming that will have to be managed. The District is already deficit spending. X will have to be defined when the District has the opportunity to evaluate the impact of new laws, rules, and regulations recently passed and waiting for the governor’s signature or veto.
- The District will have 0 violations of all applicable laws, rules, and regulations.
While it gets complicated for this brief article, the Board then needs to set more tailored goals for the superintendent that fit into the District goals. Why the distinction?
The District has operational responsibilities that must be taken care of smartly, and the board cannot do them. Therefore we have to hire a superintendent to do those things for us. If you can imagine what it takes to run any organization that is heavily regulated, has 550 employees, multiple bargaining units, 5,400 customers and their parents, and 10 branch locations, it is not easy. The superintendent has to actively manage all of that while meeting the overall school district goals.
Setting specific goals related to those operational responsibilities for the superintendent recognizes those operational responsibilities and the need for them to be expertly and carried out in a timely manner.
This special board meeting where new goals will be discussed is going to be Friday, October 13, 2017, 9:00am-3:00pm. You can look on the Hollister School District board calendar at www.hesd.org for when the actual day is confirmed and an agenda is posted. The writer will be looking for your input here or at the actual meeting. Having your support for specific goals will be greatly appreciated.
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