Around 75 Worthington school district residents attended a Community Conversation last week to provide feedback on the district's new improvement plan, titled "21st-Century Learning for All Students."

The gathering took place Wednesday, Oct. 17, at the Worthington Education Center.

"I started the evening by sharing the district's priorities and goals and the rationale behind each one," said Superintendent Melissa Conrath.

Conrath said the goals were developed after two public forums and several meetings with administrators and staff in the spring.

"We brought people in to talk about the qualities of a high-performing school district and looked at all the information to come up with five district priorities," Conrath said. "At Wednesday's forum, we shared strategies we've developed and the outcome we want, and asked for further feedback from the community."

The five priorities and their rationales are:

* The district will support high-quality learning opportunities that emphasize 21st-century learning skills.

The skills students need to succeed in the 21st century are more complex than they have been in the past.

* All students will develop a mastery of core academic competencies.

Achievement data indicate an achievement gap in the performance of varying subgroups of students in the district.

* Technology will be an integral part of teaching and learning.

Staff must develop technology integration strategies to provide students with a variety of learning experiences.

* High-quality staff will be recruited and retained to meet the diverse needs of students.

The demographics of the staff indicate the district will experience a large turnover in the next several years due to retirements.

* The district will expand opportunities for communication and engagement with the community to increase trust in decision-making.

Parent and community involvement is found to be a strong correlate to student achievement.

Conrath said people attending the forum broke into smaller groups.

"We asked everyone to attend the first priority group, about 21st-century learning skills, then asked them to choose among technology, staffing or community relationships as their second group," she said. "In the community relationship group, we asked how we could best communicate to residents who don't have children in school.

"The comments were interesting and gave us diverse perspectives," she said. "In the technology group, some people said we need to make sure our technology is up to date, and some said technology cannot replace a high-quality teacher in front of the classroom."

Conrath said she will look at the feedback and review the priorities and strategies "to make sure we aren't missing anything."

"If there is a particular response or thought that is rampant throughout the responses, we'll make sure we add it to our strategies," she said.

The final document will become the district's improvement plan and will be posted on the district Web site, worthington.k12.oh.us, when it is completed, Conrath said.

"I think we received valuable input in terms of communicating with people and making sure we use avenues of communication they prefer," she said.

One of the strategies under the first priority, high-quality learning opportunities was, "The elementary program review that began in 2006-07 will be completed and a framework for reform will be developed."

The performance outcome under that strategy was, "All elementary schools will have developed a plan for change and select elementary schools will plan for implementation of those changes beginning in the 2008-09 school year."

Similar strategies were planned for the middle school and high schools, asking each building to develop "a specific targeted plan" to expand 21st-century learning opportunities.

To help students develop a mastery of core academics, strategies included making specific plans to identify learning targets for students performing below benchmark scores and researching best practices to close any achievement gaps.

A performance outcome listed under that goal was, "Percent of students below proficient on the Ohio achievement tests will decrease by 40 percent."

Conrath said she was pleased by the outcome of the forum.

"We had a diverse group of people, those with kids and without kids and senior citizens and younger parents," she said. "I felt it was representative of the district and a chance for us to receive reactions as we move forward on these goals."

Conrath said she would like to have another "community conversation" sometime in the winter to share the district's financial perspective, and one more before the end of the school year to "explore other topics of interest to the community."

Those who could not attend the forum and would like to comment on the goals may e-mail Director of Communications Vicki Gnezda at vgnezdaSC_CODE_ATworthington.k12.oh.us or call Gnezda at 614-883-3000.

"I think we received valuable input in terms of communicating with people and making sure we use avenues of communication they prefer."

--Melissa Conrath