Whitko School Board Hears High School Is Making Changes For The Better
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
PIERCETON – Tired of what they do being regarded as “not good enough,” Whitko High School Principal David Parker told the school board Monday night that the school is making changes. Parker and teacher/administrative assistant Kathy Longenbaugh gave the board a presentation on WHS’s mission, vision and goals. This year, five of WHS’s 32 teachers are new. The school has new administrators, a new evaluation tool and new goals, philosophies and ways of doing stuff, Parker said. For the 2011-12 school year, the Indiana Department of Education gave Whitko a “C” grade. Parker said he didn’t want to overdo talking about that because it can change every year and just three students can impact that letter grade. While the high school has a lot of good “norms,” he said the staff wants to establish new ones. To make the necessary changes, the teachers recommended the statement of “Rising to the Challenge” for its mission. Challenges, Longenbaugh said, don’t have to be problems. When talking about its mission and vision, she said the staff wants to make sure it buys into it. “We want to make sure we’re the type of school that if we’re saying we’re doing something, we’re actually doing it,” she said. As a staff, the school wrote down the characteristics of a good team. She said they came up with a framework of what they wanted that to be. Parker said they refer to that often and it gives them a point of reference. The high school adopted three goals, Longenbaugh said, including: having a positive influence on students and the community, high levels of achievement and an outstanding school culture. While they started with philosophy and beliefs, Parker said what’s important is the action that will be taken. He said, “We must start with a collective belief that reaching our goals is possible ... we’re going to make decisions and if it gets away from us, we’ll have to deal with it.” Longenbaugh said the action items will be that staff will have positive influences on students and lead by example. Students must know the staff is there to help them. Staff also will connect with and build relationships with students. They will work toward high levels of achievement. The shift will move from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning. The last action item is creating an outstanding school culture. They can’t forget they are working with teenagers. The school will work to celebrate what it wants to see more of, and what its students think about. “School culture is coming around and we’re enjoying developing that,” she said. “What’s next? What’s next is nothing,” Parker said. “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We want to keep doing what we’re doing. That’s not saying we’re not doing a few (new) things like dual credit opportunities.” He said the school needs to figure out how to get the community and parents involved in these changes. Board member Roger Boggs asked how they were going to measure success. One way is to measure student achievement on things like tests as the school does have a lot of data to look at, Parker answered. The other stuff – like school culture – is a little harder to measure, he said. Longenbaugh said they sent a parent survey out earlier this school year. But as teachers look around the building, they do see a difference. “You can feel it, you can see it,” she said. Some of it is quantitative rather than qualitative, Parker said. “This is not to say things were bad or whatever. We just took a hard look at where we were and wanted to make some changes,” Parker concluded.
