NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson USD 308 Superintendent Dr. Dawn Johnson is looking ahead to the future of the district and that is going to require lots of input from various directions.
"It would start with Vision, Mission, Core Values, we have those," Johnson said. "Now, we're going to put together a committee of about 25 people to help us refine those. That will probably be a bigger mix of internal staff with some external stakeholders as a part of that. We haven't quite put that committee together yet. With that, then, that will go into some strategic planning."
The strategic planning will happen with the Board of Education at their retreat and deciding how to use dollars to accomplish those strategic planning goals, which will likely include a facilities component.
"Where are we going in the future?," Johnson said. "We've talked about some of those things with reducing enrollment, just how we make sure that we're sustainable and viable for the next 150 years. We think we'll hear a lot about childcare. I think we'll hear about how our middle schools are set up. All of our facilities are outstanding, but we have a high school that went through that bond process 20 to 25 years ago and so, they were absolutely set up for the future. We just want to make sure that the rest of our buildings are meeting those needs."
The idea is to get this done relatively soon.
"We hope to have the first part of that vision and mission wrapped up by June, so we start the next year with that strategic plan and help really identify our priorities in our efforts," Johnson said. "Facility planning will take a little bit longer. We'll hope to have that wrapped up about this time next year."
With the long-term child care needs of the community, repurposing facilities is an idea that is on the table for the committee to discuss.
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