New boss has eye on ISATs

COEUR d’ALENE — Interim Superintendent Stanley Olson started off his first and last fiscal year as part of the Coeur d’Alene School District’s leadership team by taking some “deep dives” into improving the relationship between the public and the school board.

He opened by launching an initiative to monitor student performance on the ISAT assessment.

Olson appeared as the district’s interim superintendent during Monday’s board of trustees’ first annual meeting of the 2017-2018 fiscal year. The meeting marked Olson’s ninth day on the job.

He said one of the things he’d like to work on is creating a brochure that helps strengthen the public’s understanding of the board of trustees: how meetings operate, who’s on the board and how to connect with board members. Olson presented a draft of the brochure to the members of the board and encouraged them to look it over and make revisions over the next two weeks.

The second item on Olson’s agenda is known as “data summit.” He said one truth for every board he’s served is ISAT scores are a top priority, but having meaningful discussion is difficult without dedicating an entire meeting to the subject. Olson suggested a data summit as a solution; a half or even full day of discussion between members of the board at the beginning of the school year, which profiles all the major performance indicators of the district, “along with the demographic changes, enrollment changes, so on and so forth,” Olson said during the meeting.

“It kind of deep dives into where we are at this particular point in time with our key indicators, and at a particular point we’ll do quarterly updates,” Olson said.

Olson also said this is generally done in workshops with the public and staff invited to give new and returning board members “the chance to do deep dives into where we were, where we are and where we want to be going.”

As part of the first fiscal meeting of the year, new board member Lisa May and returning board members Dave Eubanks and Tom Hearn took the oath of office for a four-year term.

The board also elected new officers on Monday, including the positions of chair, vice-chair, treasurer, and clerk of the board and acting clerk. The board re-elected Casey Morrisroe as chair and Tom Hearn as the new vice-chair.

Derek Kohles, former president of the Coeur d’Alene Education Association, introduced the new president, Bruce Twitchell, who was unable to attend the meeting. Kohles, who delivered the CEA report for Twitchell, reported the group began longevity stipends for staff “so their income can keep up with inflation, which hasn’t been the case for quite a while.” Kohles also hoped to address an ongoing teacher shortage and the increase in staff relative to the salary apportionment on the district’s budget.

“The current budget increases the number of staff who are not funded by... a significant number. This is a long-term concern for all staff since it decreases resources available for current employees into the future and compounding recruitment and retention issues,” he said.