Lance, superintendent of the Kennewick School District, led a board study session to review performance indicators and targets and urged district leaders to center their work on two fundamental mission components: providing a safe environment and ensuring students graduate well prepared.

The session mattered because the district serves about 19,000 students and the board must choose which indicators will guide decisions about instruction, safety and systemwide change. Lance said the board and cabinet should treat the mission as an anchor when selecting indicators rather than treating metrics as disconnected numbers.

Lance opened the session by describing leadership work with school leaders and the cabinet, including a short book study emphasizing a shift from a "command-and-control" approach to one that builds trust and inspiration. He described a hands-on exercise in which leaders paired with staff, recorded brief messages answering "Why should I send my child to your school?" and then were asked to reflect on what they learned about colleagues' roles. "Their responsibility was to lead learning in their buildings, period," Lance said, adding that the district—and its leaders—must remember they serve all 19,000 students.

Board members and cabinet were given study partners and a task to identify which existing indicators map directly to the two mission components. Lance instructed them to strip modifiers from the mission and identify the two fundamental parts; he said the district's mission, at its simplest, is to provide a safe place where students can graduate. He asked participants to locate indicators tied to safety and to graduation (course tuning as a broader or "course" indicator, and finer measures for tuning instruction).

Discussion among board members focused on how to use data rather than merely collect it. One board member emphasized that the district is "data rich" but must use data to drive practice and adult behavior, not just to report numbers. Lance and board members also discussed cohort or longitudinal tracking—following the same group of students across years—rather than only comparing a single kindergarten class to another. Lance recommended keeping a three-year view for systemwide changes, saying meaningful, statistically significant shifts often take about three years to appear.

Participants identified gaps in post-graduation data. A board member urged the district to seek ways to obtain one-, three- and five-year outcomes for graduates, arguing that post-graduation results provide the best evidence of whether the system left students without barriers to success. Lance and participants discussed possible partners and data sources for that work but did not adopt a formal plan during the session.

Lance closed by reiterating that the mission should anchor indicator selection and by directing cabinet members to work with board members during the year on the indicators and targets introduced at the session. The study session concluded before the regular board meeting.

The session included a book-study commitment for cabinet members, an in-meeting exercise that produced 155 word-cloud responses about leadership and communication, and an instruction to leaders to email thank-you notes to staff members they partnered with in the exercise. No motions or formal board votes were taken during the study session.