THE DALLES — During the superintendent’s report at the Oct. 24 regular North Wasco County District 21 School Board meeting, D21 Superintendent Carolyn Bernal shared her goals for the 2024-25 school year.
“For [20}24-25, as I’ve really reflected and taken a look at all of the work that we are doing between our integrated guidance planning, our strategic plan and our intensive program, I really see a lot of our work falling into three domains, so I split them up into the three goals of the three domains,” Bernal said.
The first goal is academic excellence, monitoring, and supporting district wide progress towards targeted growth in the 2024-25 Longitudinal Growth and Performance Targets (LGPTs), as well as the district’s 2027 strategic plan.
According to the 2024/2025 NWCSD Superintendent Goals document, the actionable steps towards this goal by the superintendent include “goal setting with site administrators related to LPGTs, weekly principal meetings, monthly data Professional Learning Committee (PLC) with leadership team with identified sets of data for analysis, baseline and trimesters 2 and 3 data review at scheduled board meeting and/or work sessions.”
The second superintendent goal discussed was centered around educational innovation, and monitoring and supporting district principals with focused shifts on deeper learning; utilization of the four shifts protocol; and integration of innovative classroom practices and experiential learning for students. According to the 2024-25 goals document, actionable steps towards this goal include “Goal setting with site administrators related to Deeper Learning, time on monthly leadership team agenda to engage in learning sprints around Deeper Learning and the 4 Shifts Protocol, weekly Principal meetings.”
The third superintendent’s goal for the school year is focused on student engagement and wellbeing, monitoring and supporting the development of district-wide and school based systems aimed at supporting increased student engagement, and improved wellbeing. Actionable steps towards this goal include “goal-setting with site administrators related to regular attender data and student engagement, weekly Principal meetings, monthly data PLC with leadership team with identified sets of data for analysis, baseline and trimesters 2 and 3 data review at scheduled board meeting and/or work sessions.”
Bernal ended the superintendent’s report by sharing about the newly established Youth Wellness Committee collaboration.
According to Bernal, the committee, held in collaboration with Wellness Consultant Joe Leykam, centers around working with community partners to support local youth mental health.
“A lot of this work really stems from the death of our student last year that we all experienced and just seeing all the need in our community, [I] really wanted to push this work forward in terms of supporting our youth and their mental health,” Bernal said.
She shared that over 30 community partners attended the initial Oct. 17 collaborative meeting.
“By partnering with community organizations, we aim to provide comprehensive support aimed at supporting our youth and their pursuits of educational excellence, while also being emotionally and socially resilient,” Bernal said.
While not scheduled yet, Bernal said in that the next committee meeting will likely be held in January.
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