The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Five cabinets in charge of accomplishing goals
by Olivia Lueckemeyer
At a Gunnison School District board meeting in February, RE1J superintendent Doug Tredway outlined the school district’s major initiatives for the 2015-2016 school year. To tackle the initiatives, Tredway enlisted the help of five “cabinets” that work with him regularly to ensure the district is on track to accomplish its goals.
“We can’t accomplish these initiatives alone or in isolation,” Tredway explained. “All groups must work together when we are this lean and mean.”
Although the major initiative topic was discussed last fall, the election of board director LeeAnn Mick last November and several changes made to the document prompted Tredway to revisit the initiatives as a way to reset the board’s focus. The initiatives, Tredway explained, are meant to reflect the district’s core beliefs, as well as action items from the goals listed in the district’s Unified Improvement Plan.
Cabinets to oversee initiatives include personnel, operations and human resources; data collection, assessment, instruction and curriculum; special services and populations; facilities and transportation; and business and finance.
Significance was placed on the role of the personnel, operations and human resources cabinet to continue to refine the hiring guide, the Unified Improvement Plan, and the technology plan; to work with the Pathways director on areas such as online course offerings, Summer Experience, vocational and STEAM programs, and concurrent enrollment; and to develop strategies to build community understanding of the school district, such as explaining what the district has done with mill levy money.
The district is in the process of hiring someone to oversee data collection, assessment, instruction and curriculum. This person’s roles will include professional development; managing state and district level assessments; working with the Pathways director and principals to implement new graduation guidelines set by the state; and establishing best practices for grading and record keeping.
The newly hired special education director, Robert Speer, will be responsible for many of the initiatives outlined under the special services and populations section of the document. Perhaps the most significant task is monitoring instructional recommendations for English Language Learner (ELL) students, and developing a Unified Improvement Plan for those students at each building site.
For the facilities and transportation cabinet, a special emphasis was placed on developing and implementing an updated building security plan, and preparing for the Colorado Department of Educations transportation audit, which will take place in three years.
Under the business and finance section of the document, the most important initiative was to review and refine the current health insurance program for employees to ensure compliance with the Affordable Care Act and cost effectiveness.
President of the board Marilyn Krill thanked Tredway for taking the time to formulate the initiatives.
“I’m glad we have someone in place to outline this, share it with the board and with as many groups as possible,” Krill said. “In terms of our team building, this is a really critical piece that a lot of other school boards don’t have.”
