N

Members of the Coffee County Board of Education shared differing views on what exactly the district’s new five-year plan should look like during the board’s regular work session Thursday, June 1.

Director of Schools Dr. Charles Lawson said during the meeting that the process for the new five-year plan for 2023-2028 began late last year and is based on the district’s previous five-year plan.

“You will see that we just changed some wording, we got rid of some things that were redundant and that kind of thing and just basically updated it,” he said.

Lawson said the process began with the district’s supervisors and was then presented to principals in a following meeting where they were given the opportunity to review the plan and suggest revisions. Next, the Coffee Teacher Advisory Council, made up of teachers from throughout the district, was given the opportunity to review the plan and discuss it during its quarterly meeting.

“After the supervisors had seen it, principals had seen it and teachers had seen it, that is when I put it before a panel of parents,” Lawson said. “I asked each principal to provide me with a parent representative they thought would take the time to read through it and provide feedback if necessary.”

The plan was then sent to board members via email May 15, Lawson said.

“In that time, it has been 2.5 weeks, I have not heard from any school board members, so I would assume that means that nobody is unhappy with what they see because otherwise I would have thought they would reach out to me,” he said. “I have had no emails, no phone calls, anything…”

Board Member Freda K. Jones said she did not believe the proposed five-year plan was specific enough and was not something the board could utilize to improve the district.

“It should be something usable for the school board, because this is not usable,” she said.

Jones said she would like to see specific goals and ways to achieve them incorporated into the new five-year plan.

Board Member Kathy Rose said the five-year plan is essentially a box to be checked for the state, and that there are one-year district and school plans that have specific goals incorporated in them.

“This is a box that has to be checked,” Rose said. “Then you move to your school improvement plan. That is where your heavy lifting takes place. When you look at your district plan and your school plan because then you start looking at what your goals are as a district and then how will each school work toward those goals and you get into your strategies.”

“This is a really nice document, it is very generic, it is a box that has to be checked for the state,” she said.

Lawson said it was his understanding that the state-required five-year plan predates the annual district and school plans, which do feature more specific details.

“This is something that was created decades ago and used to have goals in it and that kind of thing,” he said. “Once it got replaced with goals on an annual basis this became more generic and that is what we have right now.”

Krista Cole, grades 9-12 curriculum director, said during the meeting that the district currently has a three-pronged approach to planning.

“It is the five-year plan, the district plan and the school plan and they kind of feed into each other,” she said. “The district plan should support the five-year plan, the school plans should support the district plan.”

Cole said for the annual district plan, between three and five smart goals must be submitted.

“It has to be specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented and time bound,” Cole said. “If you don’t do that your plan will not be approved, and then after you have your goal, then you have to have strategies…if you have a goal you have to have at least one strategy and for every strategy you have to have at least one action step.”

Cole said that each action step must detail who, what, where, when and why.

Lawson said during the meeting that he realized he has failed to make sure the board was aware of these plans until the current discussion, but now that he is aware of that the plans will be presented to board members annually.

“…Now that I am aware of what needs to happen, I can tell you that is the plan we have in place to start to address that and try to set some time aside so board members can see those plans annually, can see that development and see that kind of thing,” he said.

Board Chairman Dr. Gary Nester said the comments made from board members during the work session ranged from making the five-year-plan smaller to adding more to it.

“The bottom line is we are not getting a consensus,” Nester said.

Board members discussed the possibility of approving the proposed five-year plan during its regular meeting Monday, June 12, but also creating a second document incorporating more specific details and goals.