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Schutte lends perspective

Marshalltown superintendent offers district update

Schutte

How are things at the Marshalltown schools?

Strategic planning, open enrollment, new administrators and preschool were a few of the topics Marshalltown Superintendent Dr. Theron Schutte touched upon at a Marshall County Republican Party meeting Friday.

“In previous efforts, at least in the last decade or so, there has not been much involvement of staff, let alone the community, in terms of helping shape that strategic plan,” Schutte said. “There was a lot of good stuff in the (previous) strategic plan.”

However, the Marshalltown High School graduate said a new plan was needed as several new administrators came on board at the district.

“The first thing out of the chute, I was one of either eight or nine new administrators, so a lot of time needed to be spent … filling a lot of senior leadership positions,” Schutte said, adding the high number of hires he made over the first few months of his Marshalltown tenure meant he got to build a strong team, who he called “outstanding.”

Schutte said one major step taken on the way to developing that strategic plan has been the digital platform Thought Exchange to gather community and staff input on the district’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Surveys and public meetings have been held, and now the district is taking the next steps in that process.

“We’re in the midst of analyzing that now, where the rubber meets the road is what winds up being your strategic goals,” he said. “I know the number one strength that seemed to come through was the quality of our staff …The number one challenge that came through was behavior of students.”

On the quality of staff, Schutte said they bring both expertise and a genuinely caring attitude when they interact with students. On poor student behavior, Schutte said it’s possible poverty and related trauma may be a factor for those who act in a negative way.

This is not just a Marshalltown thing, this is something that’s of great concern across the state and across the country right now,” Schutte said of behavioral issues with some students. “We’re a member of what’s called the Urban Education Network, we’re having special sessions this spring and early summer to address this issue.”

He said the goal is to address and improve the issue of poor behavior in some students while also shielding those who are behaving appropriately from having their learning experience disrupted.

Schutte said another challenging topic for the district recently has been students open enrolling out, though he did have some good news to report on that front.

“We’ve got upwards of 500 kids that live here in Marshalltown that are going to other places in the surrounding area,” he said. “One thing that I’m happy to report is that our net from open enroll in and out swung differently this past year, we actually had more come in than went out.”

He said very tentative reports have come to him suggesting that fewer students have applied to open enroll out than in the past with the March 1 deadline approaching.

Many families decide that their children will open enroll out before they enter Pre-K or kindergarten, and Schutte said he would like to have those families staying in the Marshalltown district.

“We’re minimizing some of the barriers that might exist for parents choosing to come here,” he said. “Some of those barriers might involve transportation, for example, because we haven’t historically transported preschool students, and we’re taking a look at possibly changing that in the coming year.”

Student involvement and success were also discussed, and Schutte said he supports giving all students opportunities to do extracurricular activities, athletic and non-athletic, saying they make for well-rounded kids and could give them important life skills.

“I would argue that, in many cases, what the business world is looking for as far as 21st century skills are probably taught better in those arenas, or much easier, than they might be in a regular classroom because of the teamwork involved,” Schutte said, adding the factors like winning or losing, competing, perseverance and “developing grit” are benefits of extracurricular activities. The superintendent said student achievement is high on his list or priorities.

When asked by an audience member about the recent and rushed collective bargaining process between the district and the Marshalltown Education Association and whether the students were the priority in the process, Schutte said all sides benefited.

“There was a desire on the teachers’ union’s part to try and meet to see if we could gain agreement prior to the bill being signed into law,” Schutte said. “I don’t actually know that we did sign it in time for it to take precedent over the law.”

Gov. Terry Branstad appeared to have signed the law in question before negotiations were approved by the Marshalltown School Board. However, the MEA did ratify the agreement on their end prior to the governor’s signing.

Regardless, Schutte said it is the district’s intention to keep as much of the currently held agreement as possible, even if negotiations must start over under the new law.

“We intend to live up to that contract, meaning we will do what we need to do formality-wise,” he said. “Our intent would be to put it up to the good-faith agreement that we established.”

He said the end result for the district was getting favorable terms, including a lower raise in teacher salaries than had previously been agreed upon, as well as language requiring teachers to pay for some of their single health insurance plan.

“That means more money is available for other things, classroom materials, supplies, field trips, et cetera,” Schutte said. “I think the concerns mainly came from how quickly this all came about, there was obviously fear from the unions regarding that.”

The MEA also benefited from the agreement, he added, saying they got some protections as far as health insurance costs in the two-year contract.

On the district’s finances, Schutte said things are currently going well in spite of lowered state supplemental aid due to growth in student population.

“I think we’re in a good place, right now, as far as our finances are concerned,” Schutte said. “We’re helped greatly by the fact that our enrollment grew by over 100 students this past year.”

One audience member asked about how the district might handle an immigration raid by Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE), where many students could have parents or guardians detained.

“Our primary obligation, if that were to happen again in Marshalltown, is to do what we can do on the front end just to make sure the kids that we are serving are safe,” Schutte said. “The biggest concern with that, if it happens, is if parents have been picked up and taken somewhere is who’s going to take care of their kids who are in school.”

He also said the issue of who the child should be released to after school in the situation of an ICE raid would be another factor at the forefront on the minds of staff.

Schutte also touched on Phase II of the Marshalltown High School Roundhouse project, and said an open house to look at the facility’s design is scheduled for 5 p.m. Monday, March 6 in the school board meeting room of the Central Administration Office, 1002 S. 3rd Ave, which will be followed immediately by a regular school board meeting at 6 p.m.

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