BDUSD School Board Reviews 2016-17 Accomplishments

8/15/17 – The Beaver Dam School District accomplished most of this past year’s goals that were identified in a four-year strategic plan. The plan has four core areas of focus: student achievement, staff effectiveness, facility needs and community involvement. Superintendent Steve Vessey told the school board last night that the biggest key performance objective attained was the successful passage and implementation of the district’s $49-million-dollar school funding referendum. He says a significant amount of time was spend on the logistical pieces that needed to be put in place after the referendum passed. The referendum involves a complete overhaul of the high school campus and the addition of secure entrances at all other district buildings. The next most substantial achievement he says was improved middle school course offerings. A change in the schedules at the elementary level was one of the objectives that was not realized this past year. Vessey says passage of the referendum already required a districtwide change in school schedules to accommodate the construction schedule. A group has been exploring a plan to have all elementary schools start at the same time, creating a common elementary day districtwide. He says there are recommendations from the group but it does not make a lot of sense to implement the recommendations while the schedule is already effected by referendum construction. The change is being delayed one year. In the area of community engagement, the plan had been to launch an electronic communitywide newsletter. Vessey says the process revealed that more work needed to be done on the district website before the newsletter could be started. He says a lot of the information in the newsletter would push the public to the district website but before the district can move in that direction the website needs to be better organized. The school board next month will adopt a list of performance objectives for the coming school year, which is the fourth and final year of the strategic plan.