After hours of meetings, surveys of thousands and countless back-and-forths among the Springfield Public Schools staff, superintendent and school board, the new SPS strategic plan was at the one-yard line on Tuesday night.
And then a few board members called some last-second audibles.
One was a proposed language change to the strategy regarding workplace diversity, and Superintendent Grenita Lathan said the board member who proposed it, Kelly Byrne, let her know a day prior that it was coming. At previous meetings, he had raised concerns that a diverse workforce is at odds with developing the best workforce. In response, 13 people emailed the school board this week to support the goal of enhancing and diversifying the workforce.
Another was a set of requests to change two mentions of the word “monitor” to “support.” Those motions, Lathan said, were unexpected and “disappointing” on the night of the vote. The board member who proposed them, vice president Maryam Mohammadkhani, said she was responding to concerns expressed earlier during the meeting’s public comment session by Laura Mullins, leader of the district’s largest teacher’s union. Mohammadkhani said she was sorry she disappointed some of her colleagues but said, “I will listen to the stakeholders until the moment that I have to put my vote in.”
And so, after the set of last-minute votes surrounding the language of the strategic plan, including several 4-3 decisions and a moment where Denise Fredrick, the board president, had to preside over “an amended, amended amendment,” the strategic plan reached the goalline following a final, unanimous, vote.
New plan offers four governing priorities
A school district’s strategic plan offers its guiding mission and vision, its top goals for students and staff, as well as the ways to measurably achieve them. The district’s current strategic plan was shaped by a board that only featured one current member, Denise Fredrick, and former SPS Superintendent John Jungman. In August, Lathan and the seven-member board met at a retreat to begin the months-long process of finalizing a draft in time to submit a version of it to Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Meetings about the plan have featured conversations with district leaders tasked with goals like improving the percentage of students who meet or exceed proficiency standards on local, state and national exams, developing more real-world opportunities for students and addressing employee compensation and retention.
While there was some debate about whether or not the district should signal a commitment to students’ well-being in its mission statement, the phrase made it to the final draft.
The new mission statement reads: SPS is committed to the well-being of each student by providing high-quality academic opportunities.
It will replace the current mission statement: Prepare all students for tomorrow by providing engaging, relevant and personalized educational experiences today.
The new plan puts forward four governing priorities. They are:
- Success-ready students
- Organizational efficiency and excellence
- Collaborative culture
- Quality learning environments
Those governing priorities replace a set of five focus areas outlined by the district’s current strategic plan. They included:
- Student success and learning support
- Empowered and effective teachers, leaders and support personnel
- Financial sustainability and operational efficiency
- Communication and engagement
- Equity and diversity
Whether or not diverse workforce is a goal or an eventual outcome a central topic of discussion among board members, up until the end
Throughout the process, there has been a particular focus — and a division of opinions among board members — regarding the need to specify a diverse workforce as one of the district’s goals. During several recent strategic plan discussions, Byrne asked how the district could develop “the best and most talented workforce” while also “trying to manipulate the diverse makeup of the workforce.”
The strategy linked to the development of a diverse workforce is one of five connected to a goal to “examine processes that remove barriers and provide access in order to maximize educational impact.” The goal is part of an overall objective to review programming and ensure equitable access to opportunities for all SPS students.
On Tuesday night, Byrne proposed a language change to the 26-word strategy. Eventually, it changed from:
Collaborate with the Human Resources Department to ensure SPS is a welcoming and inclusive district that attracts, hires, and retains a highly qualified and diverse staff.
To:
Collaborate with the Human Resources Department to ensure that SPS is a welcoming and inclusive district that values diversity and utilizes equitable practices for attracting, hiring, and retaining the most qualified staff.
But first, Fredrick asked if the board was ready to approve the mission, vision, goals and objectives for the strategic plan as presented — the language used in the agenda and the recommended action of district leaders who worked with the board to shape the plan. Byrne quickly motioned to approve the strategic plan as presented. Board member Danielle Kincaid seconded it. The motion and the second happened so fast Fredrick said she briefly lost her words.
Then things slowed down considerably. Mohammadkhani motioned to strike the words “mission, vision, goals and objectives” from what they were approving. Byrne seconded the motion.
“So then we’re not approving the mission, vision and goals and objectives?” board member Shurita Thomas-Tate asked.
Byrne then said that his initial motion deliberately left out the phrasing Mohammadkhani motioned to strike. Kincaid said she thought she had seconded the language as read initially by Fredrick and withdrew her seconded motion.
“Okay, so let’s just start over,” Fredrick said. Byrne then reiterated that he was motioning to approve the strategic plan, but not the mission, vision, goals and objectives. Mohammadkhani seconded it.
“So we need to discuss why,” Fredrick said.
Byrne said he made the motion because the language didn’t include approval of strategies, including the workplace diversity one he wanted to reword. Voting to approve the strategic plan, he said, encompassed the mission, vision, goals, objectives and strategies.
With that change agreed upon, the discussion moved to changes Mohammadkhani and Byrne wanted to make to the plan’s language, and then to changes Kincaid and Mohammadkhani wanted to make to the changed language.
In some of final debates on strategic plan language, board members divided
During the public comment session, Mullins, president of the Springfield NEA union, said language in the strategic plan stating that the district would “monitor” application and impact of professional learning on classroom instruction did not sit well with her union members.
“I want you to consider the message this communicates to staff if you’re truly here to support them,” said Mullins, who has in recent months criticized district administrators for an “overpowering management” style. (The district disputed that critique in a statement to the Daily Citizen.)
Mohammadkhani said she was listening to Mullins Tuesday night before she made her motions to sub in “support” in two places where the word “monitor” was in the plan.
Kincaid was not persuaded.
“We have spent hours being involved in this strategic plan, getting feedback from our stakeholders, revising, wordsmithing — not just us but Dr. Lathan and her entire team have spent countless hours doing this,” she said. “And I have a concern that we’ve had multiple retreats about this. I have a concern that here we are, the night of the vote, and we’re going in and continuing to wordsmith and make minor changes. If there is something majorly wrong with this, first of all, we probably should have talked about it during the retreat last week. But secondly, I’m not inclined to change little words here and there now that we’re here for a vote.”
Thomas-Tate, an associate professor of communications sciences at Missouri State University, said she was listening to Mullins too and would be open to changing the language if “support” still meant the district could monitor the implementation of academics in classrooms because that’s an evidence-based way to measure the success of a curriculum, class material or instructor. But, she added, that was the district’s responsibility, not the board’s.
“I know that this board is very passionate about this strategic plan being ours, as a board,” she said. “To do what with, I’m not sure, other than to monitor our one employee, our superintendent. But the strategies of how they do that are not ours. We were responsible for those goals and we did that part. And we should allow those who will be responsible for doing these things to give some input about how it should be done, because they’re the experts on how to do it. With us micromanaging the strategies it seems out of our scope of responsibility as a board, and I think we’re overstepping our bounds with regards to our roles.”
Board member Scott Crise sided with Thomas-Tate.
“I’m not an educational expert, but I see what you’re saying,” he said. “Monitoring, that’s part of the evidence-based instructional strategy. Then I can’t strike that.”
Lathan said she appreciated the collaborative process between her staff and the board, but said “it is disappointing for it to be wordsmithed” at the end of the process.
“We've had conversations all the way up until yesterday,” she said. “Now one board member did say, ‘I am proposing a change on one particular thing.’ These other ones, I did not hear from a board member on. Whether you change the word to ‘support’ or ‘monitor,’ I expect our principals and our leaders to do their jobs and hold people accountable for getting results. It's disappointing that a perception is being painted of how people feel and don't feel, and I believe the truth is out there in the feedback that we've received and how people are participating. But if you truly believe in accountability and high achievement — a lot of people talked about declining test scores over the past several years — we have to get busy as a district and as a community, so know that. And know that if you want to deliver on this strategic plan, and you want us to deliver, then we need to move forward.”
In response, Mohammadkhani said she made the motions because she had listened to constituents. After listening to Mullins, Mohammadkhani said, she noted that “words do matter” and that changing the wording from “monitor” to “support” would create a trickle-down effect that could help the district attract and retain “a diverse workforce that is strong and is the best.” She said the language change signaled that the district was more attractive and inclusive and that her motion wasn’t something to be disappointed about, but instead part of what boards do.
Both of Mohammadkhani’s motions failed to pass on 4-3 votes, with Crise, Fredrick, Kincaid and Thomas-Tate voting to leave the monitor language as-is. Byrne, Steve Makoski and Mohammadkhani voted to change it.
“I believe I can trust our staff how to monitor, how to support — it’s kind of the same thing,” Fredrick, a retired SPS educator, said.
Byrne’s changes to workforce diversity strategy (mostly) approved
Byrne’s proposal to change the workforce diversity strategy language got a verb change before the board approved it. Initially, he said he wanted to change it to:
Collaborate with the Human Resources Department to ensure that SPS is a welcoming and inclusive district that celebrates diversity and utilizes equitable practices for attracting, hiring, and retaining the most qualified staff.
Kincaid once again said she didn’t want to change the language at the last minute, and added that emails to the board and public speakers on Tuesday night voiced support for diversity initiatives within the district’s strategic plan. Thomas-Tate said she opposed the change as well, pointing to one phrase in particular.
“However, I will say that I do not like the ‘celebrate diversity,’ because it’s a demotion from prioritizing it,” she said. “I think that may or may not have been intentional, but to celebrate does not necessarily mean to value or honor it. So I don’t like the word celebrate. It doesn’t have any teeth to it with regards to holding anyone accountable, so I would not like to use that word.”
Kincaid made a motion to change “celebrates” to “prioritizes,” which Thomas-Tate seconded. Mohammadkhani then motioned to change “prioritizes” to “values.”
Byrne said the use of “celebrate” was not meant to be intentionally demeaning.
“When it comes to hiring practices,” Byrne began, “I see a stark distinction between trying to determine the end results by way of saying, ‘they must be diverse,' versus saying ...”
“It doesn't say that,” Thomas-Tate interjected.
“Let me finish, please,” Byrne said. “Versus saying, ‘Let's focus on the process,' and make sure that the process offers opportunity in an equitable and inclusive way for everyone. But the way we are fair to everyone, and the way we do make sure that we're hiring based on opportunity and merit, is to focus on having that equitable process and not focus on making sure that the results are the desired outcome.”
Byrne said the word “celebrate” might not be perfect, but prioritizing diversity or hiring a diverse staff focuses on results, which could lead to an inclusive hiring process.
“I disagree,” Thomas-Tate said.
“That's fair,” Byrne said.
“And I think that the language that is included here does not, to use your word from a previous meeting, ‘manipulate' the outcome,” Thomas-Tate said. “It is creating an experience that recruits, that opens up an opportunity for a more diverse pool. And celebrating diversity does not get you that. It requires some systematic choices and changes in order for that to happen. It won't just happen because we say, ‘Hooray.'”
Thomas-Tate said she is not suggesting a hiring quota, nor did the strategic plan language. The strategy, she said, is about increasing the candidate pool in the district's hiring processes to attract, hire and retain highly qualified staff.
Byrne and Makoski both said they didn't think prioritizes implied a quota, but Mohammadkhani said it could be misconstrued to suggest such. That, she said, is why she wanted to use the word “values” instead.
After two rounds of voting, “values” stuck in the new language on a 6-1 vote, with Kincaid not budging on the language in the draft of the strategic plan brought to the table Tuesday night.
That draft is available in the Dec. 13 board agenda. The final draft, unanimously approved by the board, and celebrated by Fredrick in closing board comments, will be finalized and filed with DESE before Dec. 22. Originally, it was due on Dec. 15, but Lathan said the state extended the deadline.
“In that case, I have an amendment,” Byrne joked.
