The Crookston School Board held a working session this morning at Crookston High School. A closed session followed regarding the year-end review of Superintendent Jeremy Olson.
The purpose of the working session was to define academic goals for the upcoming school year, review the school’s strategic plan, and review the Superintendent’s goals. The board also re-evaluated the school board standards featuring their conduct and ethics, vision and structure, accountability, and communication with each other.
Superintendent Jeremy Olson led a presentation covering all the topics, with one of the main points being the school’s vision. Olson spoke more on what that vision is regarding academics for the 2021-2022 school year. “This year, our focus is on creating a culture of high expectations,” said Olson. “This was something where we got our community together, and we started talking a couple of years ago of where we wanted our school to go, and now we’re looking at implementing it.”
Olson’s goal for the upcoming school year is to get back to where they were academically before the pandemic hit. The numbers have slowly started to decrease over the past two years. He asked the board to give their expectations and standards for the next few years. Chair of the school board Frank Fee spoke more on what the board’s expectations are. “Reading was the main area we looked at, and at the first year of the new curriculum, our goals are to be at the average of the last three years of data,” said Fee. “We take the average between the three years which was 56%, and that’s our goal for the first year, for the second year we talked about boosting it up to 60%, and then for the third year up to 65% as a strong goal to shoot for. We Will see if it’s too lofty, but it gives the administration staff something to work towards.
The school and board are stressing a culture of high expectations and that the standards are met over the course of the next year. Dates will be set to meet these goals and improve performance in a variety of areas. “Well, like anyone, if you don’t have due dates, just like a kid in school if you don’t set them, it doesn’t happen,” said Olson. “We want to make sure we set strong goals and also have timelines on accomplishing those goals so that they are met.”
A big thing the district will be looking at this year is working backward from what makes a well-rounded high school graduate and trying to get all students to that point to maximize the graduation rate and success of all the students in their futures. They’ll look closer at what qualities those students have and how they can implement certain criteria to maximize the student’s benefit.
The board also looked at their goals for Olson and the standards they want him to help achieve at Crookston. The goals are
- Continue to build relationships and provide timely communication to the school board, staff, and community.
- Continue efforts to retain and grow student enrollment.
- Create a culture of high academic achievements for students and staff.
All benefits of the goals met by Olson will reflect on the students or the community. The main goal for Olson is to have Crookston be a school parents want to send their kids to.
The strategies being put into place in most aspects are new for the district, and while it is not set in stone yet what they will look like, it’s’ something that Fee thinks is important moving forward for the district’s success. “I think the curriculum that they are incorporating is focused particularly on reading,” said Fee. “I think to have the goals and to be above the standards of the state is important to shoot for, so that the students and staff understand they will need to up their skills and work harder.”
