'Cafe' Gives WCS Ideas Moving Forward
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Daniel [email protected]
The “World Cafe” had a morning, afternoon and evening session on the campus at Grace College.
Each session answered these four questions:
– What qualities and skills would you like our graduates to thank us for as they leave our school district?
– What changes in practice would our district need to make in order to help students become the graduates you just described?
– What do you really value about our schools that you would not want to see change as we plan our future?
– What do you believe will be our greatest challenges, as a community, in the coming 3 to 5 years? How might we overcome those challenges?
The program was facilitated by Teresa Arpin of Transformation Systems Ltd.
WCS Superintendent Craig Hintz said he’s worked with the company for many years in previous school districts.
“It’s about creating a road map for this school system,” said Hintz.
“The benefit of this process is, it engages the minds of the community,” said Hintz. “What do they care deeply about when it comes to Warsaw Community Schools?”
Tables were set up and people were encouraged to sit with people they didn’t know.
One of the questions would be broached and each table would share ideas for about 10 minutes. A table host would take notes and people were also encouraged to make notes on large sheets of paper sitting on the tables.
This formate resulted in tables with mixtures of administrators, teachers, parents, community members and students.
The discussions ranged from ideas that were concrete to those more abstract. Some ideas were broad in scope while others were esoteric.
Some themes, at least in the afternoon session, seemed to be more prevalent than others.
At one point, when Arpin asked each table to give a sound bite of ideas they had come up with, a table drew some applause by saying ‘less standardized testing’.
Other themes included providing more one on one attention for students whether either through the school or a community member; developing foreign language skills at an earlier age; determining students’ career goals earlier and smaller class sizes.
“It’s an open transparent process,” said Hintz. “We’re going to take everything that comes out of these sessions and put them together.”
Elaine Bultemeier, chief technology officer for WCS, served as the internal coordinator for the event.
“I think it’s productive,” said Bultemeier. “Businesses conduct strategic planning every 3 to 5 years and I think we can take a lot from this.”
Bultemeier said she was pleased with the feedback. Hundreds of pages of information will be looked over and put together into one document.
“This makes a lot of sense,” said Brad Bishop, director of OrthoWorx. who was at the afternoon session. “Especially in this economic climate where resources are tight. It’s a way of building toward goals by using community input.”
The next step is for a core planning team to come together and meet. The team will spend three days, May 9-11, at Swan Lake.
From that retreat will come a mission statement declaring the school’s core values.
The core planning team will also meet two more times during 2011.
The team will consist of 30 members and people are encouraged to apply to be on that team.
There are also two other teams in need of members.
There is also a measurement team that will meet in September to design measurement tools and in December to focus on plans for implementation of those tools.
An action planning team will meet on five separate days from September to December.
Spots are still available for all three teams.
Those wishing to be on the core planning team are encourage to fill out their applications as soon as possible. An orientation meeting for that group is set for Monday.
For more information visit the corporation’s website at www.warsaw.k12.in.us and clicking the “Strategic Planning” tab at the top of the page to get an application form or email [email protected]
Starting Monday, applications will also be available at Warsaw’s central office, located off Ind. 15S and next to Washington Elementary.[[In-content Ad]]
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The “World Cafe” had a morning, afternoon and evening session on the campus at Grace College.
Each session answered these four questions:
– What qualities and skills would you like our graduates to thank us for as they leave our school district?
– What changes in practice would our district need to make in order to help students become the graduates you just described?
– What do you really value about our schools that you would not want to see change as we plan our future?
– What do you believe will be our greatest challenges, as a community, in the coming 3 to 5 years? How might we overcome those challenges?
The program was facilitated by Teresa Arpin of Transformation Systems Ltd.
WCS Superintendent Craig Hintz said he’s worked with the company for many years in previous school districts.
“It’s about creating a road map for this school system,” said Hintz.
“The benefit of this process is, it engages the minds of the community,” said Hintz. “What do they care deeply about when it comes to Warsaw Community Schools?”
Tables were set up and people were encouraged to sit with people they didn’t know.
One of the questions would be broached and each table would share ideas for about 10 minutes. A table host would take notes and people were also encouraged to make notes on large sheets of paper sitting on the tables.
This formate resulted in tables with mixtures of administrators, teachers, parents, community members and students.
The discussions ranged from ideas that were concrete to those more abstract. Some ideas were broad in scope while others were esoteric.
Some themes, at least in the afternoon session, seemed to be more prevalent than others.
At one point, when Arpin asked each table to give a sound bite of ideas they had come up with, a table drew some applause by saying ‘less standardized testing’.
Other themes included providing more one on one attention for students whether either through the school or a community member; developing foreign language skills at an earlier age; determining students’ career goals earlier and smaller class sizes.
“It’s an open transparent process,” said Hintz. “We’re going to take everything that comes out of these sessions and put them together.”
Elaine Bultemeier, chief technology officer for WCS, served as the internal coordinator for the event.
“I think it’s productive,” said Bultemeier. “Businesses conduct strategic planning every 3 to 5 years and I think we can take a lot from this.”
Bultemeier said she was pleased with the feedback. Hundreds of pages of information will be looked over and put together into one document.
“This makes a lot of sense,” said Brad Bishop, director of OrthoWorx. who was at the afternoon session. “Especially in this economic climate where resources are tight. It’s a way of building toward goals by using community input.”
The next step is for a core planning team to come together and meet. The team will spend three days, May 9-11, at Swan Lake.
From that retreat will come a mission statement declaring the school’s core values.
The core planning team will also meet two more times during 2011.
The team will consist of 30 members and people are encouraged to apply to be on that team.
There are also two other teams in need of members.
There is also a measurement team that will meet in September to design measurement tools and in December to focus on plans for implementation of those tools.
An action planning team will meet on five separate days from September to December.
Spots are still available for all three teams.
Those wishing to be on the core planning team are encourage to fill out their applications as soon as possible. An orientation meeting for that group is set for Monday.
For more information visit the corporation’s website at www.warsaw.k12.in.us and clicking the “Strategic Planning” tab at the top of the page to get an application form or email [email protected]
Starting Monday, applications will also be available at Warsaw’s central office, located off Ind. 15S and next to Washington Elementary.[[In-content Ad]]
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