President Danielle Lindorf's Late January update

The board has had a busy week attending school functions, community meetings and our work session. Tammy Harold and I met with about 20 community members in the Meridian Ranch area on Tuesday night and discussed topics such as State standards and testing, the D-49 Special Education programs, bonds and mill levies and the budget. The community was very engaged and had many questions. We were able to address some concerns informally and refer other concerns to the appropriate people.

Our desire in holding these community gatherings is to understand what our stakeholders are feeling and thinking. We know that their children's education is extremely important and we would like to do all that we can to represent the voice of the people as we make policy changes and decisions. As the community meets with various board members, at these gatherings or elsewhere, it is important to remember that no official business is conducted at these times; it only happens at a posted board meeting. As we try to address your concerns and answer your questions, we are speaking as individuals with a variety of differences in opinion. We are excited to speak with you as we continue with our community meetings. Please feel free at any time to send us an e-mail, as well.

During our board work session, the board was able to review the District strategic plan and get an update on its progress. It’s available here on the website. The administration also offered a first glance at the 2011/2012 school calendar, which will be discussed again during our February regular board meeting. We reviewed several changes in board policy and look forward to receiving public comment on those, either through e-mail or at our next open forum. The policy changes are available on the web site through the board packet PDFs. The last item for discussion at the work session was a restructuring of Board committees. Currently, there is no uniform way of structuring our standing committees, and our goal is to create a regulation to our policy that will provide the infrastructure that we need to establish productive committees. We will have this document ready to inspect during the February regular board meeting.

We appreciate everyone's participation and comments as we move forward with many new initiatives to improve our students' success. We are anxious to get your input and would like to hear from you.

Danielle Lindorf
President
D-49 School Board

(http://www.d49.org/news/Pages/BoardUpdate.aspx)