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Lowellville schools want community input through today
they By EMMALEE C. TORISK
LOWELLVILLE
In Lowellville, change is a given for the 2014-15 school year.
It did, after all, begin with new faces filling two of the top three administrative roles in the district.
Eugene M. Thomas replaced Rocco Nero as superintendent.
Christine Sawicki, a former consultant with the Mahoning County Educational Service Center, assumed the newly created position of assistant principal, and has been working closely with Jared Van Kirk, K-12 principal since the 2012-13 school year.
The district is, admittedly, in “a little bit of a transition period,” said Joe Ballone, a school board member. “But in this case, I think change is going to be a good thing for the district.”
With those changes, both administrators and board members felt the time was right to take stock of “what’s important to the community” and also to make transparency in all matters a priority, said Jim Alfano, board president.
“Everybody needs to know what’s going on,” he explained.
So district administrators and board members developed a survey — available through today on the school district’s website, www.lowellville.k12.oh.us — that will be used to guide “decision-making in the future,” Alfano said.
The survey, which Sawicki was key in developing, includes questions concerning potential enhancements to the website, perceived availability and accessibility of the district administrators and challenges facing the district in the next few years, among others.
“We’ll be using [the feedback] to gauge where we’re at and to figure out where we want to go,” Alfano noted, saying he’d love to see everyone associated with the district, which this year serves about 600 students, complete the survey. “It’s crucial to stay on the same page.”
Ballone said he viewed the survey in a similar light. It will be nice to “actually have something in writing to prove” that a certain aspect of the district needs improving, or even that “people are happy with” it.
Any issues brought up in the survey will be “discussed or handled” in the near future, he added. He said the district as a whole is working on its internal communications, as well as its communications with parents and other community stakeholders.
“That’s a big thing we’re trying to improve on: responsiveness — or following through and taking care of problems [and] not letting them fester,” Ballone said.
Once the survey closes, the results will be compiled, and they will be made available to administrators and board members within the next couple of weeks. The board already is planning to discuss goals for the 2014-15 school year during its regular meeting Wednesday.
“I think that the more information we can compile from everyone involved in our district, [the more] it will help us set goals that are attainable for us,” Alfano said.
Thomas, who has been superintendent of Lowellville schools since Aug. 1, noted that another survey is planned for the end of the school year. It will “determine whether or not some of the areas have changed in perception or response.
“This is a proactive way of running the school district ... and making sure we are doing what’s right for kids and for the community as a whole,” Thomas said.