The new strategic plan for Komarek School is nearing completion. The major work of the strategic planning committee occurred over about six hours on Friday, Dec. 8 and Saturday, Dec. 9 when the approximately 30 members of the strategic planning committee, which includes 12 parents, teachers, administrators, school board members, North Riverside Mayor Joseph Mengoni and North Riverside Village Board member Debbie Czajka met in the school’s new lunchroom to hash out goals and priorities in five different areas under the leadership of former Komarek superintendent Robert Madonia who is preparing the strategic plan free of charge to Komarek.
“This is all about community engagement,” Madonia said.
Now that the expansion, renovation and modernization of the school is complete it is time for the K-8 school in North Riverside to focus on academics and other aspects of the school, said Superintendent Todd Fitzgerald.
“Through this process we will be able to really prioritize some long-range goals for our district,” Fitzgerald said.
The new strategic plan will focus on five areas: curriculum and instruction, public relations, human resources, student needs and finance and facilities.
“We’ll be targeting the top two goals in each of those areas and that will be where we’ll start in putting together action plans in those particular areas,” Fitzgerald said.
Goals in strategic plans are often quite general. In the finance and facilities area the top two priorities identified were to develop alternate funding models to generate new and consistent funding sources such as grants, fundraisers, educational foundations, and legislative work. The second goal was to prioritize paying teachers competitive salaries and benefits, investing in staff to maintain small class sizes and improving financial support for teacher professional development.
In the curriculum and instruction area the top goal was also to improve professional development for teachers to better enable them to meet the learning needs of all students. In the student needs area a top goal identified is to develop systems to ensure success for Komarek students. In public relations the top priority is to streamline communications to meet the technological and language needs of all students and families. And in human resources the top goal identified was to ensure adequate staffing to meet the needs of each student.
Madonia will now take the priorities and goals decided upon by the committee and write up a five-year strategic plan which the Komarek school board is expected to approve in January or February.
Madonia said the strategic planning committee plans to meet annually for the next five years to monitor progress in achieving the goals of the strategic plan.
The parents on the strategic planning committee were selected by school officials.
One of parents on the committee who spoke with the Landmark said that she found the process worthwhile.
“It was a good experience, just hearing all the different views,” said Erica, a parent who declined to give her last name. “Coming up with things that will help our community and school district is always a good thing to do. I’m happy to be a part of it and I hope we just get good items out of it for our children.”
The parent said she wants Komarek to focus on serving the needs of all its students.
“I would just like to make sure they continue to foster an environment for all the student populations because we do have a good diverse majority of children over here and just making sure that we are meeting all of their needs,” Erica said.
According to the most recent Illinois School Report Card 51.7 percent of Komarek students are Hispanic, 28.1 percent are white, 15 percent are Black, 4.4 percent are Asian and 4.2 percent are mixed race.
