Presenter outlines superintendent goals, safety drills and strategic-plan timeline at school board meeting

At a school board meeting, a district presenter summarized progress on superintendent goals and outlined a schedule of training, safety and planning activities for the coming year.

The presenter said the written report had been reformatted "to be consistent with sharing out the superintendent goals and the work towards achieving those goals" and pointed members and the public to the BoardDocs link containing goals and subgoals. "These goals are also included in the superintendent report from last month that can be found in BoardDocs," she said.

Why it matters: the report sets timelines and public engagement milestones for district priorities, including professional development, curriculum alignment and a multi-year strategic plan that the board would be asked to approve in June 2025.

Professional development and curriculum changes The presenter told the board a Professional Development subcommittee formed in March is planning a conference-style in-service day on Nov. 4, 2024 focused on instruction and district goals. "We are currently planning for the 11/04/2024 in service day," she said.

She also said the district expanded its curriculum council to include elementary teacher leaders, changing from a grades 6–12 model to a K–12 model that will meet quarterly. At the secondary level, quarters 4 and 1 will be used to propose course changes and revise the program of studies, while quarters 2 and 3 will meet as a K–12 team to address vertical alignment and districtwide practices.

Safety drills and partnerships The presenter reported that evacuation drills are being conducted at each school through Oct. 31 and that families were notified through district alerts. "We completed the high school evacuation last week. It went well," she said, adding that follow-up emails will be sent when drills conclude. She thanked the municipality and Mount Lebanon police and fire departments for assistance during the drills.

The district will host three safety partnership meetings, the presenter said: two meetings with administrators and public safety partners on Oct. 15 and Jan. 14 (both 9–11 a.m.), followed by a community forum in the spring. "At that first meeting, we will select the date for our community forum as a group," she said.

Business outreach and policy updates The presenter announced two business roundtable meetings for 2024–25 on Oct. 9 at noon and March 12 at noon, inviting local businesses to participate.

She also said the district is updating policies to align with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association policy manual, noting three new policy numbers and that older policies had been retired. She listed the new policies as 103 (discrimination/harassment affecting students), 104 (discrimination/harassment affecting staff) and 249 (bullying and cyberbullying), and said the district retired GBAA, JBA and JICD. Administrative regulations for those policies will be shared with the board in the coming weeks.

Strategic plan timeline The presenter described a multi-month timeline to develop a new strategic plan: an email launching the process would go out Sept. 29; an October survey of staff, families and students in grades 5–12; analysis in November and review in December; virtual and in-person focus groups in January–February; findings presented to the public in February; work sessions with stakeholders from February through April; a draft presented to the school board in May; revisions in May–June; and a board vote on the final plan at the June meeting. She said the district would report progress on the plan from July 2025 through June 2031.

What comes next No formal motions or votes were recorded in the presenter’s report. Board members were provided updates and timelines; administrative regulations and the strategic-plan materials will be distributed to the board and public ahead of future meetings.