By Emma Tanner etanner@dailycorinthian.com Aug 28, 2024
The Alcorn School District is holding a series of community feedback meetings beginning Sept. 4.
The first meeting will be held Sept. 4 at 5 p.m. in the Biggersville High School gym. The second will be Sept. 4 at 6:30 p.m. at Wheeler Grove Baptist Church. The third will be Sept. 18 at 5:30 p.m. at Glendale Baptist Church. While the locations are intended to serve Biggersville, Kossuth and Alcorn Central schools respectively, anyone is welcome to attend any meeting of their choosing.
The meetings are designed to gain feedback on a five-year plan for the district. Superintendent Brandon Quinn wishes to hear the community’s opinions before moving forward at all.
“The school district ultimately is the community,” he said. “I think it’s important that we reach out to them and hear what they think we’re doing well and hear what they think we could do better.”
In 2021, at the beginning of his term, Quinn put together the first strategic plan. He has since met most of the goals laid out for himself. Moving forward, he would like his next strategic plan to focus on the community’s wants and needs from the school board.
Over the last few years, the school board has given community members the chance to come to the office to share their opinion, but they were not getting the desired outcome. They hope that visiting the communities, rather than having communities come to them, will make for a more fruitful interaction.
“With having meetings here, [community members] haven’t shown up like I would like to see,” Quinn said. “We’ve created opportunities within each of the communities for them to come into a more comfortable environment.”
The meetings will feature an introduction by Quinn, followed by an outline of the five-year plan and facilitation from Oxford School District’s Bradley Roberson. The district has three main questions for community members: “What are we doing well?”, “What could be better?” and “Where would you like to see the district in the next three-to-five years?”
From there, Quinn hopes to use the feedback as a roadmap for formulating the remainder of the plan, or even changing existing parts.
The meetings are designed to simply be a listening session.
“The community sees things that I don’t see,” Quinn said. “It would be really easy for me to stay in my bubble and say that I see it all and I understand it all when I don’t.”
After the meetings, there will be a survey for participants to fill out immediately after, as well as 24 to 48 hours after the meeting. The district hopes this will allow community members to marinate on their thoughts and ideas, while also sharing what is on their minds at the meeting.
“We are doing individual community meetings, but this is one district,” Quinn said. “What we’re trying to do is capture the voices of each community but align those to the district.”
“The community sees things that I don’t see. It would be really easy for me to stay in my bubble and say that I see it all and I understand it all when I don’t.”
Brandon Quinn
ASD Superintendent
When and Where When and Where
What: Alcorn School District Community Meetings When/Where:
Sept. 4, Biggersville High School, 5 p.m.
Sept. 4, Wheeler Grove Baptist Church, 6:30 p.m. Sept. 18, Glendale Baptist Church, 5:30 p.m.