Strategic Planning Meeting Held Thursday for Clearmont School

On Thursday, May 11, SCSD#3 School invited parents, staff and community members to a meeting to get ideas about what direction they wanted for Clearmont School in the next five years. A supper was served courtesy of the school.

Joel Dvorak, Sheridan, who helps school districts develop and implement strategic plans for the schools, talked to the group of students, teachers, parents and community members about the school.

Earlier in the day, Dvorak talked to many of the Clearmont students to find out what they wanted in their school, and he was very impressed by them.

At the community meeting, Dvorak asked the attendees to write down their ideas. What the school is doing right, as well as what they feel needs to be improved upon. He said if something is working, don’t change it. He added that making the plan was easy, it was the implementing that was the challenge.

Around 50 people attended, and Superintendent Chase Christensen said that the number of parents in attendance represented around 50% of the students in the district, which he felt was an exceptional turn out.

Dvorak added,

Each table of four or five people wrote down their ideas for change, and these were given to the board to be incorporated in the new plan for the school. Each table had a spokesperson who talked about what they had discussed.

One subject that many of the attendees voiced was wanting to find a way to increase the enrollment in Clearmont School, and how to attract more students.

Brenda Michelena, school staff, opened the comments with this. Michelena’s children attended Clearmont, as do her grandchildren currently.

Jolene Poppengia, one of the staff members at the school, whose children and now her grandchildren also attend Clearmont School, echoed Michelena’s comment, saying that said that Clearmont School is made up of students and she felt they should find ways to bring in more students.

Chris Odegard said that he wanted the school to attract quality students, and said that in a small school, the athletic programs suffer.

Dvorak said that 80% of the positive PR from the school districts comes from the students who attend classes there.

Clearmont Community Church Pastor Cody Ramsay mentioned that not all families in the district were ranching families, and that not all students go to college. He felt that the school should focus on vo-tech classes as well as college prep classes. He also felt the school should focus more on student mental health more as well.

Vivian Ramsay, parent, was very concerned about school safety, and felt that there should be more security at the school, given the school shootings that were happening nationwide.

Dvorak said that he had talked to the students about that very thing.

The ideas put forth at the meeting will be taken into account by the board members at future meetings when making a five-year plan for the school.