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The Coffee County Schools Board of education is ready to get to work on a new five-year plan for the district that once completed, will replace a more streamlined plan approved by the board in June.

Board members will meet at 5 p.m., Monday, Aug. 21 for the first of a series of meetings specifically for creating the new district five-year plan.

“I know Ms. (Kathy) Rose had provided a proposal so to speak for all the board members as far as what she had envisioned based upon what was mentioned at the work session,” Director of Schools Dr. Charles Lawson said. “It is just a matter of now how the board wants to move forward with this.”

Board member Thomas Ballard echoed Rose’s earlier sentiments regarding how the School Board should go about crafting the plan.

“Maybe what we do is we assemble what everybody would like to see in there, come up with an outline and then figure out kind of a systematic plan to have a series of meetings to fill in that and what data we are going to need to collect in order to make that happen…,” he said.

Board member Freda K. Jones said she would like to see a needs assessment completed as part of the new plan.

Rose said she agrees that a need assessment is important.

“I think that is a component of it,” she said. “ I think for it to be a really organic document that we are going to go back and revisit every year and update I think it needs to start…with where are we right now.”

Rose said some questions board members could be asking themselves are, “What is our perception of our school system,” “What are our Strengths, what are our weaknesses,” “Are we happy with the mission statement.”

“It comes down to those things about Coffee County that are important to us, those traditions and that culture that we want to maintain and how do we maintain that and still get these kids where they need to be…,” Rose said.

Ballard said the area board members scored the lowest on during its annual self-evaluation in advocacy.

“We as a board, and we are assessing ourselves, we are not out there advocating for the schools and people are getting the wrong impression,” he said.

Board Chairman Dr. Gary Nester asked what the timeline is for the board to have a completed five-year plan.

“My goal, I would say that we should have something solid by March or April if we start now,” Rose said.