Parents, teachers, community work to set priorities for Wake County Schools

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Parents, teachers work to set priorities for Wake County Schools

Recruiting teachers, providing a rigorous education and sending students to college are the top priorities Wake County residents want for their school district.

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Recruiting teachers, providing a rigorous education, and sending students to college are the top priorities Wake County residents want for their school district.

Wednesday, more than 700 people at a town hall meeting in N.C. State's McKimmon Center voted for those three priorities. The system will use the results to come up with the district's new five-year strategic plan.

"We in the community continue to want to keep that open communication and have these types of forums to continue to support the students and staff and grow," said parent Monica Massey.

Eighty-four percent of the parents, teachers, and business workers indicated recruiting, developing, and retaining high-quality employees should be a focus. Sixty-two percent rated rigorous education as a high priority, and 58 percent want to target graduation rates.

Focus group interviews and an online survey with more than 11,000 respondents identified 10 focus areas that were voted on Wednesday:

Encouraging students to communicate and work collaboratively with all kinds of people within the global society.

Engaging the broader community (e.g. parents, businesses, community agencies) to support schools.

Graduating students on time, college and career ready, and preventing dropouts.

Maintaining safe, orderly, and modernized schools.

Offering students a wide-ranging curriculum (e.g. world languages, performing and visual arts, career and technical education courses) and extra-curricular activities (e.g. athletics and clubs).

Promoting development of solid morals, good character, respect for others, and a strong work ethic.

Providing appropriate, rigorous education at all academic levels.

Providing comprehensive support services (e.g. school health, counseling, social work, psychology).

Providing up-to-date learning materials and technology for our students.

Recruiting, developing and retaining high quality employees.

Most seemed satisfied with the overall list, but at least one educator said the priorities don't account for closing the achievement gap within a cultural context.

"We didn't acknowledge in Wake County, but I think this is the best way to start in terms of talking about it," said W. Calvin Anderson. "It's a tough thing to talk about what hurts us most."

A strategic planning committee will meet every two weeks for the next month to come up with an outline to implement the top five priorities in a five-year strategic plan.

School officials say the committee will present the plan to the school board in December.

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