Cullman City Schools seeks community feedback
Jan. 25—Cullman City Schools have began hosting a string of community meetings in an attempt to gather feedback that it will use to develop a new five-year strategic plan that is said to be announced this spring.
CCS Superintendent Kyle Kallhoff said that the system's current strategic plan is more than five years old and that he would like for the direction of the new plan to be determined by those who it affects.
"When I've led the process of developing a strategic plan, I like to do things a little bit differently than it was done here before. I like community driven strategic plans. That's the purpose of these three meetings, to share with you guys [those attending the meeting] the pillars of what we want of our strategic plan," Kallhoff said.
The parents and faculty that gathered at the first two meeting — hosted at Terri Pines Monday evening and West Elementary Tuesday evening — were presented with three options to offer feedback. Physical surveys were offered as well as a QR code that linked to an online version of the survey. Tables were also set up to coincide with each of the six key areas in which CCS were most seeking feedback.
These six areas are
* Student Safety and Support
* Technology
* Curriculum and Assessment
* Employees
* Finances and Resources
* Facilities
A seventh table — referred to as "the parking lot" — for those wishing to offer suggestions or feedback that did not fall into any of the six aforementioned categories.
The six question survey provides a statement such as "Students in the Cullman City Schools have access to modern up to date technology," and "The leaders in Cullman City Schools are efficient and effective with finances and resources."
These statements were able to be given a rank of 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree), and provided the opportunity to state how the system is doing well or how they can improve in each area.
Feedback sessions with CCS employees and community groups are also scheduled to take place.
Kallhoff said that once all the feedback has been collected that he and district officials will use it to create a "roadmap" for a new strategic plan that he plans to present to the school board members in April or May.
"Once the board approves to move forward on that, then it is our roadmap. It helps us align our resources and informs our decisions over the next five to seven years," Kallhoff said.
The third and final community meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday, Jan. 30, at 5:30 pm in Cullman High School's Tillman Hall.
Patrick Camp can be reached at 256-734-2131 ext. 238
