Leavenworth board keeps five broad goals, asks superintendent for SMART targets on staffing and facilities

Leavenworth USD 453 board members on Monday agreed to keep five broad board goals that align with the district’s strategic plan and asked administration to provide more specific, measurable language — especially for staffing/personnel and capital/operations items. Board members and Superintendent Dr. Kellen Adams discussed how the five top‑level goals map to strategic‑plan focus areas for teaching and learning, staffing and personnel, family/community engagement, facilities/safety, and finance/operations. Several trustees said broad board goals are useful as umbrella statements and suggested drilling down in the strategic plan and superintendent goals into SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time‑bound) action steps. Dr. Adams and Dr. Bodensteiner reported that the district has created “instructional look‑fors” (rebranded from nonnegotiables) and rolled those materials into new‑teacher orientation and building professional development. The district plans to begin implementation walkthroughs after the September PD day and will target 10 walkthroughs per administrator per building; data from those walkthroughs will be used to monitor classroom implementation and report back to the board. Personnel and staffing measures also drew attention. Superintendent Adams said recruitment fill rates recently reached about 91 percent and suggested shifting focus toward staff engagement and satisfaction as a way to ensure retention. The board asked administration to return with SMART‑aligned language for a staffing/personnel goal that emphasizes employee input and feedback, and to prepare a finance/operations goal to capture facility security and maintenance priorities. Board members also requested that strategic‑plan focus areas be highlighted in monthly briefings and in the Friday board summary so new or incoming board members can see a clear, organized history of decisions and performance metrics.