School board reviews how to assess district goals

School board members on Nov. 8 reviewed their new district goals and the different ways staff could measure those priorities throughout the year.

The newly proposed goals — brainstormed by the school board at a past meeting — say the Newton Community School District will provide each learner a safe, supportive, collaborative and inclusive culture; effective and engaging teaching for all; and a challenging and relevant learning experience.

Superintendent Tom Messinger said there are goals the district can more directly measure with concrete numbers and data, such as the results of the Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress. But others may require schools to have certain components in place, such as professional learning communities.

To measure school culture in the high school, for example, the district says it can look at survey results, behavior trends and attendance rates, among other things.

“The goals that you guys set and what you’re wanting to do with it, really has some excitement built in the administrators as well,” Messinger said. “…Not only is it good discussion at the board table, but it is providing good direction for our buildings as well.”

Cody Muhs, president of the NCSD Board of Education, wanted his fellow board members to weigh in on the proposed goals and the measurements for each goal. Since Muhs was not re-elected to the school board, he noted he won’t be able drive this topic but still wanted to understand the board’s direction.

School board member Donna Cook said the district is “definitely headed in the right direction,” noting the board had been trying to have more concrete goals.

“This gets us closer than ever before,” Cook said. “And I appreciate that.”

School board member Robyn Friedman agreed, saying the goals are on the right track. It is never a bad idea, she said, to have multiple schools’ information about what they would like to measure in one place. To Friedman, identifying these measurements could lead to better communication in the buildings.

Messinger added, “The other thing that this does do is provide that common direction for all of our buildings … Not only does it help provide some commonality between the buildings, but it provides some consistency between the board goals and our building goals and building work.”

In other action, the NCSD Board of Education:

• Accepted donations from the Knights of Columbus, Pella Rolscreen Foundation and PSG Geiger. Through the Knights of Columbus’s Campaign for People with Intellectual Disabilities, the organization raised more than $878 to support the Newton school district’s special education department. Pella Rolscreen Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Pella Corporation, provided Newton schools with $20,000 to benefit the industrial technology program and the purchase of the CNC equipment at the high school. PSG Geiger, a distributor of promotional products, had a location in Newton that recently went out of business, but after doing so donated its PPE items like masks, gloves and hand sanitizer.

• Released the retainage fee of $16,355.73 to White Hawk Roofing, an Omaha-based contractor that had recently completed the high school’s roof project. Altogether, the partial roof replacement costed the district more than $327,000. The original contract sum was for $296,000 but required more than $31,000 of additions. The district has no more payments to make on the project.

• Passed the second readings of the Iowa Association of School Board’s board policy primer updates. According to district documents, slight changes were made to policies regarding assistance animals, organization of the board of directors, board meeting agendas, closed sessions, employee complaints, student complaints and grievances and insufficient classroom space. One of the newer polices was a section on exempt meetings, which includes updated language to clarify the use of exempt meetings. The policy section regarding communication channels was rescinded as well.

• Approved the district’s application to the School Budget Review Committee for a request for modified allowable growth of $287,739 for open enrollment out and $22,765 for English Language Learners Beyond 5 Years.