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Superintendent outlines three goals; district presents strategic‑plan progress and rolls out EduCLIMBER data dashboard
Summary
Superintendent Don Cowart presented goals for 2025–26 focused on community engagement, leadership capacity and instructional/fiscal systems; district staff reported gains in ELA and science, noted math lagging, and demonstrated the EduCLIMBER data warehouse for tracking assessments, attendance and behavior.
Superintendent Don Cowart presented three goals for 2025–26 — strengthening two‑way community engagement and visibility, building leadership capacity and celebrating excellence, and refining instructional systems and fiscal practices — and asked the committee for feedback.
Why it matters: The superintendent’s goals align with the district’s five‑year strategic plan and guide priorities for curriculum, staffing and community outreach. Staff also demonstrated a new district data platform, EduCLIMBER, intended to centralize academic, attendance and behavior data for K–12 use.
Goals summary: Cowart described objectives tied to each goal, including expanding digital storytelling, creating feedback loops with families, nurturing internal leadership pipelines and tightening fiscal systems to address the district deficit. Indicators of success included greater community engagement measures and improved operational predictability.
Strategic‑plan progress and data highlights: Amy (district administrator) summarized district performance by priority area: ELA proficiency at 45.1 percent (state testing), science at 42.8 percent, and mixed results in math where gains lagged. The district identified disproportionality in chronic absenteeism and achievement: 41 percent of students qualify for free/reduced lunch but represented 63.5 percent of the chronically absent population; students with disabilities are 18 percent of enrollment and 24.7 percent of chronically absent students.
EduCLIMBER demonstration: Amy and IT staff showed EduCLIMBER dashboards populated with i‑Ready assessments, attendance and behavior incident data. The platform can display grade‑level assessment trends, attendance by weekday or month, behavior incident counts, and intervention plans. District staff said EduCLIMBER is already in use by interventionists and leadership and will be rolled out to MTSS teams and regular educators this year; intervention plans and historical assessments will follow students through K–12 in the system.
Parent access and next steps: Staff said EduCLIMBER is not currently parent‑facing; some assessment platforms such as i‑Ready can be made available to parents with login steps. The superintendent and administrators plan stakeholder outreach (admin retreats Aug. 4 and Aug. 13) and parent surveys to shape event types and communication channels. Staff emphasized it may take 3–5 years to see full academic impact from new curricula and system changes.
Follow up: District will continue professional development on data use, finalize EduCLIMBER rollout to educators, and plan parent communications and training for access to assessment results where possible.
