Arlee community gathers to set goals for school district
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ARLEE — It is typical for school boards to set certain goals for school districts whether that involves curriculum or test results. This year, the Arlee school board has set a different goal; to include the community in setting some of these objectives.
The board invited Joe Brott and Kris Goss from the Montana School Board Association to facilitate strategic planning that involved the whole community.
“If we are going to make progress we’re going to have to have community involvement,” school board member Doug Lefler said.
Lefler said the board felt it needed to set new goals, and the goals of previous school boards needed to be updated.
“I (still) feel a connection to this school; this is where we come together, and it’s the school that brings us together,” Lefler said. He graduated from Arlee High School in 1984 and has children who now attend.
This idea of connection to the school and community was the theme as more than 50 parents, teachers, school board members, students and community members broke into five groups to discuss the core purpose and values of Arlee school district.
Some of the ideas that came from the discussions included providing healthy meals and lifestyles, providing a quality education and competitive wages, facilitating school pride and parental involvement, providing a safe environment for learning and celebrating diversity.
“I’ve seen that come full circle, that acceptance of diversity,” said Willie Wright, the American Indian curriculum coordinator for Arlee Schools, who has been with the district for a number of years. “Arlee has come a long, long ways and I’m very proud of our community.”
Several in the crowd agreed that one of the things that sets Arlee apart from other districts is the celebration of diversity.
“One of the values here in Arlee is an inclusion, a kind of melting pot,” Lefler said.
There was also discussion of closing the achievement gap between Native and non-Native students, which school board member Troy Felsman said some statistics indicate are at 25 percent. Wright said that gap was only at 10 percent 33 years ago. Elementary Principal Lisa Miller also pointed out that testing has changed greatly since then with the implementation of programs like No Child Left Behind.
The creation of such programs has also affected the way people view how school districts should be controlled.
Brott said in 1980 polls indicated that people believed local school boards should be responsible for deciding what is taught in schools. Then in 2000, No Child Left Behind was created and by 2010 numbers indicated that more people thought the state and federal government should control education.
“The trend is that we don’t need school boards,” Brott said. “There is a trend away from community ownership. You don’t want to lose control.”
“We do this for a lot of school boards,” he continued. “They want to set a definitive direction on where they want to go and that takes a wide range of opinions and ideas.”
According to Brott, these types of meetings are essential with the way the economy is now. He said it takes a great deal of planning to accomplish goals in school districts and was impressed by the number of people who showed up at the meeting.
“The more the community knows what’s going on about in the schools, the more they like (the school) and are involved,” Brott said.
The meeting was the first of three that will take place before December. Brott said by the end of the third meeting, the district will have a clear goal for the next two or three years. However, he also wanted attendees to plan further into the future.
The group was assigned homework, which was to think about the direction and goals for Arlee School District 20 years from now.
“I want you to be vivid, think outside the box,” Brott told the group. “It’s bold, believable and reachable, and it’s there.”
“I thought the turnout was good,” Felsman said after the meeting. “We need to have many different ideas, input and involvement.”
