The Greene County School Board recently held a work session to establish its goals for the year.

The November 30th work session included Lou Ann Gvist, who is the Iowa Association of School Boards Development Director, and she facilitated the discussion. Board President Bonnie Silbaugh tells Raccoon Valley Radio one of the main takeaways from the meeting was remembering that the school board represents the community and their goals should reflect that, while the superintendent’s goals should be focused on the school district and also working in conjunction with the board’s goals.

Silbaugh talks about the mainset for the board before they discussed what their goals were going to be for the year.

“Think of it like an umbrella that’s kind of covering everything. So the school board, as a board has goals there are going to surround students, they’re going to surround facilities, and they’re going to surround resources like your finances and your teachers. And so to remember that that overarching theme and then that there will be kind of micro-goals if you will or strategies to help reach those goals.” 

Silbaugh points out their main goals were: academic excellence, recruiting and maintaining staff, along with community and relations, which talked about the transparency as a board, perception of the district to the public and marketing the school district for student opportunities.

“There’s never probably been a time in schools where there’s more free choice than there is right now and we want them to choose (the) Greene County (School District). So what can we do to help them come back to Greene County, keep choosing Greene County, and keep doing our best in that aspect. So there’s definitely goals that focus down that lane.”      

Silbaugh says the Board will consider approving those goals at their regular meeting next week.