Port Washington school officials provided a comprehensive assessment of the district’s goals and plans at the State of the District meeting.

The district released its strategic plan in June. Superintendent Michael Hynes said the district review would bring past ideas and goals together.

“Just think of it as the previous State of the District really set the table,” he said. “Now we are serving the food as far as what’s about to begin.”

Hynes emphasized the significance of analyzing objectives. He said that one should view them as both individual and combined concepts.

“It’s important that we are looking at things in isolation but you’re also looking at alignment,” he said. “And how everything is integrated together. That’s important to understand.”

Hynes presented goals for the Board of Education, superintendent and district office. He linked the challenges to these groups as his presentation progressed.

“I view the superintendency, at least for right now, as a district orchestra conductor of all these moving parts to create a symphony in the end,” he said. “That is the desired goal.”

The education board’s goals include supporting and monitoring the well-being of students and staff and continuing to advocate for more state aid.

Hynes also shared objectives for himself. In particular, he noted the implementation of the district’s five-year strategic plan.

They divide the plan into four parts: curriculum changes that support the vision and mission, facility and operations-based changes to reflect the needs of the district’s changing culture and climate, promoting and strengthening diversity, equity and inclusion and strengthening communication.

Hynes said each of these specific objectives requires action steps, evidence of success and evaluation.

“You take a deeper dive into this particular component — we’re looking at action steps, evidence and evaluation,” he said. “This is all an important part of the process of making sure that myself and others are staying on the task before we can focus on these things.”

District office goals were divided into four categories: business office, special education/pupil personnel services, human resources and school leadership as well as curriculum and instruction.

Business office objectives included restructuring personnel’s functional responsibilities, strengthening communication with building administrators and community members and providing staff development for business staff to improve efficiencies and time management.

Goals for special education/pupil personnel services included expanding the extended school year program, developing integrated co-teaching programs and restructuring/redesigning the transition program.

Human resources pursuits included developing and supporting new administrators, negotiating contracts and hiring a diverse workforce.

School leadership aims included providing ongoing support for previous initiatives, increasing curricular consistency and helping improve graduation and advanced designation diploma rates.

Sean Feeney, an assistant superintendent, also shared the results of a district-wide survey given out in May. The district shared the questionnaire with families, students (grades three to five/six to 12) and staff (instructional/non-instructional).

The survey judged satisfaction on certain topics but was different for each group. Yet some topics like school climate, safety and “grit” went across multiple surveys.

The survey provider then gave benchmarks to compare the district’s results with over 3,000 schools and 2,000,000 students, family members and staff members.

While students in grades three through five, as well as staff, had answers that were average or above average, the other groups’ answers ranked mostly below average.

“We’ve got to address these problems that might pop up in the survey,” said Feeney. “And clearly there are some, right? We’re putting it out there, we’re not hiding any of the unfavorable responses, because this becomes our baseline now. We’re looking to improve, and we’ve got action plans in place.”

In the most extreme instance, the district asked parents about barriers to engagement, family engagement, school climate, fit and safety. All five answers fell between the 0th and 39th percentiles compared to the national average. Three questions — on barriers to engagement, climate and fit — fell between the 0th and 19th percentiles.

(About 23% of families responded to the survey. This was over 60% lower than the participation rates of students at 85% and staff at 87%.)

Feeney said the data requires context and cautioned against panic.

“There are certainly some things we need to do and even if we have a very favorable result — 75% lands in the top quintile — what’s happening with that missing 25%?” he said. “There’s work to be done both on the high end and the lower end of those surveys. Which is the value of giving it again.”

All district staff members have reviewed the survey results. The district will conduct more surveys this year.