OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE ZACHARY COMMUNITY SCHOOL BOARD
ACADEMICS, EXTRACURRICULAR & ACCOUNTABILITY COMMITTEE
STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETING - THURSDAY, MAY 21, 2015
The committee meeting was called to order by Mrs. Grice at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 21,
2015 at 3755 Church Street, Zachary, Louisiana.
Invocation was led by Jennifer Marangos.
BOARD COMMITTEE MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE: Donna Grice, Ann Watkins (arrival 5:21),
Marty Hughes, Gwen Fuselier
ABSENT: David Dayton
OTHER BOARD MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE: Heidi Vessel, Beth Kimmell
Staff & Community Advisory Members in Attendance: Jennifer Marangos, Michelle Boutte,
Amanda Ackman, Roosevelt Wilson, Melissa LeBlanc
Strategic Planning Process – The 2015 Strategic Planning Process Guidance for Meeting #2 and
the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) Analysis was reviewed.
The
analysis was submitted by school principals Martha Davis, Jennifer Marangos, Dewey Davis,
Keisha Thomas, Debby Brian and Joe LeBlanc, and was used as a baseline for the group’s
discussion. The guiding questions/answers are outlined below.
Strengths – Guiding Questions
1. What advantages does your organization have
a. Strong teachers
b. Community support/Parental support
c. Grade level clusters – consistency across K-12
d. Variety of programs offered to students
e. Ancillary and intervention programs available to students
f. Autonomy – administrators are not micromanaged (some community members did
not agree with "autonomy" of the administration as being a strength)
g. Support from central office staff
2. What do you do better than anyone else?
a. Meet the needs of our students
b. Support teachers
c. Communicate well
d. Adjust and adapt to whatever is thrown our way
e. Evaluate data
3. What unique resources can you draw upon that others can't?
a. The community
b. Schools within our district
c. Shared vision amongst administrators and schools
4. What do people in education see as your strengths?
a. Professionalism from the top down
b. Academic performance
c. Attention to detail…getting it right
d. Resources
5. What factors allow you to improve/maximize student performance?
a. Facilities
b. Personnel
c. Teacher web pages (Moodle)
d. Online grades (JPams)
e. Family Involvement
Weaknesses – Guiding Questions
1. What could you improve?
a. Coordination of functions across the district
b. Communication – can always improve
c. Evaluation process
d. Consistent evaluation of teachers
e. No PACE/Honors in grades 5-8
2. What should you avoid?
a. Complacency
b. Changing what’s right due to the actions of one parent
c. Worrying about popular opinion
d. Lack of enforcement of school residence requirements
3. What factors cause us to lose students?
a. Athletics
b. Discipline issues in classrooms as well as at school
c. Policy is not broken to satisfy public opinion Public perception - "teaching to the
test", "school culture - fights, drugs", "homeless students"
d. Less rigor in the classroom
e. Bullying
f. Friends/other students leaving
g. Lack of extracurricular for younger students
4. What factors cause a decline in the academic performance of students?
a. Reduced intervention
b. Inability to get SpEd services
c. Reduced instructional time due to testing mandates
d. New students entering the district
e. Increased class size
f. Students moving to the next grade unprepared
Opportunities – Guiding Questions
1. What good opportunities can you name?
a. Jump Start initiative
b. Writer's Workshop Model
c. Accelerated Program
d. Journey to College and Careers
2. What interesting trends are you aware of?
a. Political influence in education
b. Decreased funding of state mandates
c. Privatization
d. Charter schools
3. Are there any untapped resources that could be of value to the school system?
a. We can reconnect to the community
b. Think outside of the box
4. Are partnerships being maximized?
a. Joy Corporation-No one wants to work with them! It has not been a good partnership
b. We've maximized our partnerships to the extent that the partners want
Threats – Guiding Questions
1. What obstacles do you face?
a. Budget cuts and being required to do more with less
b. Risk of burning our teachers out
c. Rising cost of benefits
d. Using temporary labor - these folks do not buy in to being part of our team and do
not take the initiative to do their jobs well
e. Personal technology - students at the middle and high school level do not make good
decisions with regard to cell phones. The recommendation to the policy committee is
that middle and high school students not be allowed to bring cell phones to school.
f. SASSY - not honoring evaluation data from out of state or other districts because the
paperwork is different. Students who desperately need services do not receive them.
g. RTI - paperwork required is not worth the very low percentage of students that get to
the next step of being evaluated.
2. What are your competitors doing?
a. Imitating us
b. TAP schools
3. Are quality standards or specifications for district/school/teacher performance
changing?
a. Yes - state mandated
4. Is changing technology threatening your position?
a. Yes – Social media (like Facebook) spreading rumors
5. Do you have budget issues?
a. Yes - state does not fund mandates
6. Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your business?
a. Yes - We feel that the district is close to a tipping point...
- Community rejection of the tax
- Fear of how much more we can absorb without academics being affected
-Community perception - if perception becomes negative, flight begins
Committee members were asked to review the goal setting segment of the strategic plan to be
covered at the next meeting. Mrs. Grice will send out updates before the next meeting which
will be Thursday, June 18th at 5:00 p.m.
The committee meeting was adjourned at 6:03 p.m.
Hubie Owen, President
Scott Devillier, Superintendent