BENTONVILLE -- The School Board spent more than three hours in a special meeting Saturday to begin identifying its core values, a step officials say will help the board develop goals and strategies.
Kristen Garner, a staff attorney with the Arkansas School Boards Association, led the meeting. The board historically has had difficulty sticking to its role of focusing on the big picture rather than the day-to-day details of running the School District, Garner said.
At A Glance
Meeting Schedule
The Bentonville School Board meets twice this week. The board’s regular meeting for January will be at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. The board also will meet for a work session at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Both meetings will be at the School District Administration Building, 500 Tiger Blvd.
Source: Staff Report
"It's like your camera. You should have your telephoto lens on all the time. If you've got your telephoto lens on, you can't look down, because you won't see anything," Garner told the board.
If a board is struggling with long-term plans, a good way to deal with that is to step back and figure out what its core values are, she said.
Garner handed out large pads of sticky notes. She asked board members to consider and write down how they want the district to be perceived 10 years from now in three broad areas: educational quality, facilities and community relations.
Wendi Cheatham, a board member, said she doesn't want any of the district's schools to be known for being significantly better or worse than any others. Board members agreed maintaining equity among the schools should be a priority.
"We're not going to allow one school to be the choice over another," Cheatham said.
Cheatham also emphasized the district cannot be all things to all people because money doesn't allow it. That means the district cannot afford every program every person wants.
"That's not sustainable," she said. "You can explain we think these things are wonderful, but we can't have all of these things."
Brent Leas, board member, said all children should graduate fully prepared to take their next step in life, whether that's college or the work force.
"We're preparing those kids early on to be great citizens," Leas said.
Garner condensed all of the board members' thoughts of how they want the district to be known into a few big ideas under each category. The board then chose which of those visions they deemed most important.
The most important value to them was preparing students for the next step. Also high among their priorities was "aggressive stewardship," meaning the district is efficient and careful with its resources.
Michael Poore, superintendent, will summarize the priorities gathered from Saturday's meeting in written form. Travis Riggs, board president, asked board members to review that document and provide feedback to Poore.
"Then we come back and set a meeting to make a plan for the next steps," Riggs said.
Those next steps could include revisiting and revising the district's vision and mission statements.
The board briefly discussed the district's current vision statement, "Excellence with every step." Grant Lightle, a board member, said he thought the statement doesn't say much, because excellence is subjective.
"I just don't think excellence tells you anything," Lightle said. "For me the goal is making sure no kid gets left behind."
Lightle also expressed some doubt as to what the board would get out of the core values discussion. Toward the end of the meeting, he said he still wasn't sure what the board was trying to accomplish.
"I really think we ought to be talking more about strategy," he said.
Dave Perozek can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWADaveP.
NW News on 01/18/2015