Crookston Superintendent Jeremy Olson held a community input session Tuesday night in the Crookston High School commons to help shape the district’s strategic plan. Olson said he was excited by the turnout of community members who participated. “We had 75 people here, and we’re very excited to see that kind of turnout,” said Olson. “Very thankful to those people that gave up two hours of there time to come and work with us and help us prepare for the future.”
Community members were asked to reflect on the last five years and consider things related to Crookston Public Schools that had both a positive or negative impact on both things that were done intentionally and unintentionally. Among the things that had a positive impact were expanded preschool and Early Childhood Family Education opportunities, Service Clubs (Leo Club, Builders Club, etc.), Orchestra and the Fine Arts, special education, different clubs and activities, diversity of the student body, relative safety of the school and community, state participation, and the pool changing hands.
Some of the areas the community identified as having a negative impact were the failed referendum, lack of communication to parents, parent and student involvement in sports, too many sports, special education and para cuts, scheduling for band and choir, lack of written report cards, cell phones, lack of follow-through on discipline, out of school suspensions, family structure, vaping, frustrated teachers, and a school climate of mediocrity.
Olson said he wasn’t surprised by what the community came up with, because they mirror what has been identified by staff and community members in prior discussions. “Actually, the things that we came up with tonight don’t surprise me,” said Olson. “As I’ve been talking to staff and community members in my time here many of those things continue to come up. It was a reaffirmation of some of the things I’ve heard as I visit with community members. The important thing now is to take this input and start putting it into action. So tomorrow we’re going to meet as a school board to take this input and the input from our staff and develop a plan on how we’re going to get there. Because at the end of the day if we don’t develop any action we’ve not done our job.”
The community members were then asked to identify areas of priority which included, a culture of hard work and excellence, strong partnerships in the community, a safe, inclusive and involved student body, life skills in the classroom, accountability for students, parents, teachers and administration, identifying and addressing the issues around declining enrollment. Olson said the board will work on creating a multi-year strategic plan with defined steps to address the priorities identified. “What we’re looking at is where do we go from here,” said Olson. “That’s our big ticket question. Over the course of the next couple of months, we’re going to try to put into actionable steps what are our year one, year two, year three priorities. My focus will be to try to communicate with our community about what that strategic plan entails and what we’re going to be trying to do each and every year. Really in some ways, I need to hold myself accountable and the schools accountable so that we’re making steps towards the strategic plan. My hope and my vision would be in five years having a similar session as to tonight and hopefully many of the items we’ve talked about here tonight have come to fruition. I’m hoping we’re looking back and saying we’ve accomplished this and feel pretty proud of where we’ve been and where we are going.”
