At the Candidate Forum last Thursday, Tim Burke said what you would pretty much expect ... except for one instance.
Asked about the District 192 Strategic Plan, Burke called it "fluff" and all about "process" and said that it didn't have anything to do with student achievement. (more about "process" later)
Maybe he doesn't realize that the plan was developed with students, teachers, non-teaching staff members, and community members. It represents the direction those people want for Farmington schools. According to the district web site, people on the task force include Andy Derner, Julie Almquist, Marianne Feely, Dan Dorn, Mark Froehling, then-student Mallory Wander, Pastor Jamie Thompson, and Burke's favorite current board member Ann Manthey.
So Burke basically said all their work was for nothing. That it includes no substantive value. That's a bit of a slap in the face for all those good community members, wouldn't you say?
Not surprisingly, he's wrong about the Strategic Plan, both in terms of its value to the district and in terms of its content. The plan's first Action component is to develop individual teacher curriculum maps to ensure teaching is aligned across schools and across grades. If you don't think that's about student achievement, try being a 6th grade teacher who has students from all four elementary schools and each group of students has learned something different. Imagine being a 2nd grade teacher expecting your student to know something they were never taught because one 1st grade teacher didn't cover it, even though everyone else did.
One of the second Action Plans is to develop comprehensive staff development that results in high levels of performance as evidenced by "increased student learning". Burke must have missed that part ... or he lied at the candidate forum. We won't speculate as to which.
Burke encouraged everyone to read the plan. We do to. Maybe even Burke should give it another gander.
