The Kingsport City Schools Board of Education held a work session on Tuesday, October 24, 2017. Several key items were discussed, including:
- An update on the district's e-Learning efforts;
- A report on the revised KCS Strategic Plan for 2017-18;
- A review of one new Board policy and two policy revisions to be considered at the November Board meeting.
Detailed Work Session Notes
Mrs. Laurie Norris, KCS e-Learning Coordinator, provided a report on district's e-Learning vision. The use of technology in the learning environment provides a key resource to transform the teaching and learning process.
- Canvas is the online platform KCS has selected to use for online classes. Canvas simplifies teaching and learning by connecting many digital tools in one easy-to-use framework.
- Canvas is now used to host digital content for virtual, blended, and face-to-face courses.
- The Canvas platform is also used as a collaborative tool for professional learning courses and within the educational community for items such as course templates, new teacher orientation, and book studies.
- Since e-Learning's inception in KCS, 22 courses have been fully developed by KCS instructors, 744 students have completed online courses, and the library of online resources and digital content continues to expand.
KCS Director of Performance Excellence Mr. Michael Hubbard, provided a report on the revised KCS Strategic Plan for 2017-18.
- The revised Strategic Plan is a compilation of work conducted throughout the 2016-17 year in an effort to systematize the structure and better align the plan with initiatives occuring throughout the district and the KCS Guiding Tenets.
- The Strategic Plan has four measurable long-term outcomes: 3rd grade reading, high school readiness, college readiness, and career readiness.
- Each outcome is related to one or more of the KCS district goals, as found in the Guiding Tenets. Each has multiple objectives set forth to ensure the outcomes are met in a timely manner.
- Each objective then has one or more strategic initiatives which are broken down into action steps to be achieved by the action team, objective owner, and objective sponsor.
- Board acceptance of the new Strategic Plan for 2017-18 will be sought at the November 7 BOE meeting.
Board member Mr. Todd Golden and Mr. Andy True, Assistant Superintendent - Administration, reviewed one new policy and revisions to two existing policies for Board consideration. Formal action will be requested at the November BOE meeting.
- Policy 2.703 - Audits is a new policy to specify corrective action steps and requirements for LEAs with findings in their annual audits.
- Policy 3.202 - Emergency Preparedness Plan is a revised policy amended to comply with State law regarding annual emergency drills.
- Policy 3.400 - Student Transportation Management is revised to comply with State law regarding the basic duties of a transportation supervisor with respect to safety complaints.
In addition to reviewing these three policies, Mr. Golden and Mr. True recommended that all other policies in section two of the KCS Policy Manual, having been reviewed by the Policy Review Committee, be affirmed as passed as part of the November 7 BOE meeting's Consent Agenda.
The next regular meeting of the Board of Education will be on Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 6 p.m. The meeting will take place in the Tennessee Room of the Administrative Support Center(400 Clinchfield Street).