Student, Stakeholder & Market Focus

1. Student, Stakeholder & Market Focus Dawn K. Creason, Director, Public Relations Kelly Marcy, Director, Student Services

2. It’s All About Our Key Stakeholders… • Community • Business and other partners • Parents • Employees • Students!!!

3. Swimming in a Sea of Mandates • Many student segments identified through legal and/or regulatory requirements • Exceptional children • Economically disadvantaged • Limited English proficiency • Other AYP subgroups as identified by NCLB

4. Additional identified student segments • Current students • Academic program • School level (elem, middle, high) • Grade level • Geographic location

5. Additional identified student segments • Former students • Graduates/alumni • Prospective students • Mooresville Graded Schools • Charter school students • Other non-public school students • Pre-K students

6. How Do We Listen and Learn? • I-SS Two-Way Communication Model Senior Leadership & Board of Education Staff, Students & Stakeholders Two-way, symmetrical communication *Rev. 02/09. Based on Grunig’s (1992) Two-Way Symmetrical Communication Model. See page 29 of handouts for additional details

7. Addressing the Needs of Non-ISS Students • School choice program, a derivative of feedback • from current parents and prospective parents • Also addresses facilities needs and market share • Developed a comprehensive marketing plan • to address the requirements of students and • parents: See pages 32-33 of handout for additional details

8. We Learn A Lot By Listening… Our listening and learning methods include: • Conferences • Area advisories • Focus groups • Task forces • Meetings • Family Resource Center • PDSA • Issue bins • Partnerships • Surveys

9. Key Examples of the Partnerships Process • Involvement in key local/regional/state agencies • Golden Opportunities Partners Program • Strategic, mutually-beneficial partnerships • Learn & Earn Early College High Schools • Barium Springs Home for Children • Boys & Girls Club of the Piedmont • City of Statesville

10. Evidence the Partnership Program Works • More than $17 million in grants for community programs aimed at dropout prevention • Community survey data indicates partners are supportive of I-SS • Continued trend of growth of partnership program

11. Partnership Growth Trend

12. Complaint Management Process • Identify isolated areas for improvement • Identify overarching issues for total school, district improvement • Regular reviews of data to determine action steps • Two methods of access • Electronically or by phone • Family Resource Center (pages 30-31 of handout)

13. Complaint Management Process Complaint External Internal Send to process owner Valid or invalid? If invalid, contact customer with response/explanation If valid, address complaint If you can’t address, bring to CT/OT/EC

14. Complaint Management Process • Three customer service requirements • 24-hour initial response time • Accurate response • Polite/pleasant response • Includes a feedback loop to ensure requirements are being met (a process improvement since original deployment) • For additional information, see page 20 of handout

15. Complaint Management Process Improvement & Results: Using Data to Improve Processes • Example: Large numbers of parent complaints indicating displeasure at eliminating recess as a form of discipline • Reviewed policy • Re-educated staff on policy expectations and requirements • Monitor the implementation of the policy

16. Current Complaint Management Data • The overall trend is that the number of complaints is going down • Begin in March 2007 with an average of 15-20 district-level complaints per month • Now seeing 3-5 district-level complaints per month • Indicates two things: • Individuals are handling issues at the appropriate level as directed by the process • Stakeholders are more satisfied

17. Area Advisory Meeting Process • Example: Parent meetings to examine the preference for changing student bell times • Started based on feedback regarding traffic issues and the instructional benefits to lengthening the school day • Topic was the center of fall and spring area advisory meetings • Feedback gathered and shared at cabinet meetings; recommendation sent to the board of education

18. Area Advisory Meeting Process • Based on area advisory feedback, as well as survey data, recommendation to the board was to keep bell times as is • No change to bell times, but a number of schools identified ways to get more out of the instructional day, as well as alleviate traffic in problem areas

19. Student Focus Group Process • Example: Student focus group data indicated that students felt drugs and alcohol were a problem at their school; students also stated that the district’s policies were too punitive and provided little in the way of helping students receive treatment • Crime and violence data supported and validated the students’ concerns • The policy was revised by a group of counselors and other stakeholders to include a process for dealing with violations

20. Student Focus Group Process • Senior leaders agreed with recommendations made by counselors; recommended a policy change to the board of education • Board of education approved the revision to include therapeutic components as opposed to only punitive • Marketing campaign was launched to inform parents, students, and staff of the program • District has seen a significant drop in the number of drug and alcohol related offenses • See page 21 of handout

21. What Does Our Community Think?

22. Contact Information • Dawn Creason, Director of Public Relations • dcreason@iss.k12.nc.us • Kelly Marcy, Director of Student Services • kmarcy@iss.k12.nc.us