Othello Schools share strategic planning feedback

OTHELLO — Othello School District Superintendent Pete Perez and Tammy Campbell, Chief Executive Officer of The Scholar First – an educational consulting organization based in Washington – shared a presentation during Monday’s Othello School Board meeting on feedback from the district’s ongoing strategic planning process. 

“We're about 80 to 85% through the process of strategic planning. We spent about the last year and a half preparing for the process and then the last several months actually going through it,” Perez said. 

Campbell discussed the feedback process involving students, staff and community members. 

“When you have broad, stakeholder voice and input, it can be a transformational process for the district,” Campbell said. “It presents the district with an opportunity to really assess what's working and what's not. By getting a lot of people in the space and in place, you get ownership and more people committed to implementation.”

Common, shared themes in the presentation included the importance of teacher support, supporting the emotional well-being of students, diversity, family and community focus, student-centered focus, and a need for more consistent communication and student accountability.

Perez presented feedback from students.

“Students value learning and classrooms that are engaging. They want to feel like what they're doing is important, that it's relevant,” he said. “Working in a positive environment and having an interest in the topic (is important); I think that's true for all of us even as adults.”

Teacher support was another important element.

“One of the things that (students) shared with us is that support from teachers really mattered and that was across all grade levels. ‘When the teacher believes in me, when the teacher thinks I can do it, I'm more likely to be successful,’ so having a really caring and skilled teacher was important to that,” Perez said. 

Parents and members of the community also provided feedback. 

“The idea about family-oriented, this sense of community and a sense of family, was really clear in the data,” Perez said. 

Campbell said the family and community focus was a critical part of the responses.

“This was, like, an overwhelming thing for your district,” she said. “I've almost never heard it said by so many people. I just want to share that.”

Parents seemed to believe that staff put students first.

“They also felt like teachers generally caring about their students, that most of our staff do in fact believe that and behave that way and that there are some key educators that look out for students,” Perez said. “That was important for ensuring students' success.”

Perez said the district also asked parents where it can improve. 

“Discipline and behavior were identified as areas for improvement,” Perez said. “Certainly, there have been some changes to the consequences for student behavior in the state of Washington in the last five years, so communicating that to some of our families who may have had students in the system earlier. Have we been clear enough about communicating that, talking about our grading system and some of the changes we made there? I think we've made some progress there, but certainly some work is still to be done.”

The parents also shared what they felt should be priorities in the district. 

“Student accountability was one. Making sure that we're holding students accountable for their behavior,” Perez said. “Another one was training and support for teachers to better meet student needs, so that whole concept of making sure that our staff, that the challenges that they face in the classroom day to day, we're making sure that they're prepared to deal with those and providing the training and support they need.”

Perez also discussed staff responses. 

“When they think of culture in Othello, here's that theme again of family-oriented, just like we heard from our community,” he said.

Staff said that the district is doing well with data-driven practices, setting high expectations for students and supporting them academically and emotionally, Perez said. 

“They expressed concerns with leadership and management. The same voices getting all the air time with buildings and at the district office,” he said. “I've talked with the board before about my view on school district systems and those layers and how we work, and I think you also see this reflected in my own superintendent goals around making sure we have strong partnerships with our associations. But as you can see here, there’s still some work to be done in that area.”

Perez said staff also wanted to focus on ongoing professional development, equitability and inclusivity, strategic curriculum and practices, open communication and partnership with parents and understanding students’ needs. 

“We need to understand who our students are better,” Perez said. “Our students said, ‘Hey, we want teachers who really know us’ and our teachers are saying, ‘Hey, we really need to get to know our kids.’”

Campbell shared the three core values the district had drafted during the strategic process; integrity, community and excellence.

Board members Aaron Gerber, Lindsy Mollotte Prows and Isauro Pruneda said they appreciated the focus on community. 

“I do think we have something special in this community,” Prows said, “and I think that it says a lot how many people grow up here and return here as adults or never leave in the first place.”

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com. Download the Columbia Basin Herald app on iOS and Android.

    Othello School Board members, from left to right, Isauro Pruneda, Lindsy Mollotte Prows, Kenneth Johnson and Chris Baginski look over the agenda prior to Monday’s regular meeting.
  

    Othello School District Superintendent Pete Perez