Adaptability, responsibility among school district’s new goals for graduates

More than 500 responses were recorded from the community in a discussion about the competencies that are desired for Whitefish graduates.  

"We narrowed down the feedback and identified six clear points," Whitefish Superintendent Dave Means said at the Whitefish School District board meeting Nov. 12. 

The six competencies include adaptability and resiliency, communication, critical thinking and problem-solving, ethical knowledge, responsibility and mastery of academic content. 

"I'm excited about the new graduate student profile because it represents what we do. And even with some of the divisions we may have, it is nice that we can agree on competencies that we value as a community. That's something really special," Means said.  

Looking forward, the board aims to come up with three different, solid examples that demonstrate these competencies in action. 

The examples and the overall graduate student profile will be brought to the board for approval in January. "The next stage will be looking at more artistic representations of our performance,” Means said. 

THE BOARD approved the donation of nearly $25,000 for the Whitefish High School choir’s upcoming field trip to California.  

The money was raised from 99 donors through online fundraising.  

Another large donation was approved for baseball. Whitefish High School Inc. provided $25,000 of raised money to go toward baseball, a sport that is school sponsored but not school funded. 

THE BOARD also approved the guidelines for evaluation of the superintendent. The annual evaluation will be completed over the next few months.  

Among several of the parameters of superintendent evaluation, the school board discussed the efficacy of "K-12 Connects" and annual district surveys as informal forms of feedback.  

These informal evaluations can include a wide range of feedback from different stakeholders, such as numbers on college admissions,  

"It's kind of nebulous," said Trustee Katie Clarke. "K-12's are topic specific. it's not necessarily a uniform group. I think they're valuable tools, but I'm not sure how it affects the superintendent evaluation,” Clarke said. 

"It does affect the evaluation because in my experience, it is one place where we get community memory," Trustee Shannon Hanson commented 

Other board members agreed that surveys and informal feedback show the competency of leadership among the greater Whitefish community. 

NANCY CAWDREY’S Forever Glacier art exhibit has been a colorful highlight at Whitefish High School.  

"I've known Nancy and Steve for a long time. They're always finding ways to engage teenagers, from gallery visits to artist's talks. it's an amazing opportunity to have her artwork at our high school and to weave in cross-curricular projects," said Claire Kniveton, art teacher at high school who is helping to facilitate lessons and viewings for students across the district.  

All grade levels across the district have been invited to visit the paintings. The Cawdrey's have also shared resources to help teachers with lesson planning. 

Students are "curious because she uses bold, contemporary color that she uses to paint her animals. It is magnificent and a great way for students to view art," Kniveton said.  

DIRECTOR OF Curriculum Lisa Bloom gave updates on professional development.  

Last summer, required training topics included PCBE (personalized cometancy based education) and Magic School Artificial Intelligence programs. Training for Google Suite tech tools was a helpful option for newer teachers.  

"The variety of choices met individual needs," Bloom said. 

For some trainings, teachers had flexibility in picking topics relevant to them, such as a 'happiness project' training led by the Nate Chute Foundation. An OPI Indian Education For All employee led a training that was also well attended, Bloom said.    

BRIDGET EKSTROM of D.A. Davidson. presented preliminary options and analyses of the bond market as the board prepares to issue bonds in early February.  

The preliminary plan is to have bonds in $5,000 increments that will be sold as a tax-exempt investment. There will be about 6,000 bonds available to purchase. 

For a full report of Ekstrom’s analysis, see the Nov. 20 issue of the Pilot.