The Overton County School Board will work together to form a five-year strategic plan during a retreat Tuesday.
Director of Schools Kim Dillon said forming a strategic plan serves as the starting point for the school board to set expectations for the system. Dillon said she wants to make improvements across the board.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Dillon said. “We want to continue that improvement regardless of, if we have had huge successes in certain areas. Obviously, we want to continue that, and continue to improve and move forward.”
Dillon said the board will focus on goals such as infrastructure, safety, students with disability, and technology. Dillon said one major goal is improving third-grade reading proficiency.
“That’s the number one goal for TISA,” Dillon said. “They want all third graders to be proficient, or 70 percent of third graders to be proficient by 2030. So that starts that accountability report, and then you set other goals.”
Dillon said the retreat is very beneficial for school board members as it is not in a school board setting.
“I think in a school board setting, you have an agenda, and you are basically looking at trying to pass certain things, and you don’t really get the time to get to know the people, and that’s what it’s all about,” Dillon said. “I mean, we kind of need to all know each other. We can come into a school board meeting and go through the motions, but you don’t get to actually have those conversations. This is more casual.”
Dillon said administrators will also participate in the retreat. Dillon said the retreat is beneficial as it helps administrators and the school board stay on the same page moving forward.
“We all have certain things that we want to strive for, so it wasn’t just one person saying, ‘I really want you to do this,’” Dillon said. “It was all of us coming together at the table and saying, ‘Well, what do you want to do in your area, what would you like to see improve?’ and we also want it to be obtainable because while we set a lot of goals, we want some successes. So we want to set them where we have some success. Everything is not obtainable, but you can get close to those, so we want to set things to where we can celebrate those successes.”