Education will be the first area of focus for ASI

Washington County has joined a new initiative to bring surrounding counties together to improve the quality of life for residents in this region.

Align Southern Indiana (ASI) includes the following counties: Clark, Floyd, Harrison, Scott and Washington

President/CEO Rita Shourds said when representatives from all five counties met last year, these were the areas they felt should be focused on:

Economic and Talent Development: The current and future talent needs of the regional workforce will be met with the end result being high paying jobs, increased productivity and retention of talented graduates.

Education: An integrated educational model, beginning with the cradle and continuing through career will meet the needs of our advancing community.

Regional Leadership: A unified, engaged and focused leadership creates efficiencies and provides an effective way to respond to the needs of its citizens.

Quality of Life: Through improving emotional, mental and physical health, citizens will live in a healthy and safe environment.

Quality of Place: Through enhancing the quality of place in our region, we will create an area that is attractive for economic development and inviting for citizens to live, work and play.

Now that the five areas have been established, the governing board is working on the long-term outcomes for the alignment teams that are being formed for each main category.

Shourds said during a recent meeting the governing board decided that education is the first area of focus for ASI. Last week, the 12 superintendents from the five participating counties were invited to attend a meeting to discuss the educational needs for this area. Shourds said she was pleased to have eight attend the January meeting.

Salem Superintendent Dr. Lynn Reed was the only superintendent from Washington County who attended.

“We spoke about the priorities for the area, what we felt was really a road block to having our communities be a destination place,” said Reed.

“We want this region to be attractive for businesses and families and we feel education is an important piece of that.”

One of the main concerns from all the superintendents is that children are not kindergarten ready when they enroll for school. Reed said they do feel the opioid crisis is having an impact on the young children.

“So many don’t know their colors and numbers and even their receptive language is so low,” she said. “Many are not even sure what is being asked of them.”

The plan that came out of the meeting is to get all the schools on the same page, have the same standards for kindergarten enrollment by talking with preschool and day care providers and making sure they have the tools they need to get kids where they need to be for school. This would require all the corporations working together to come up with the same standards and requirements.

“We need to get parents involved in helping with the kindergarten readiness,” added Reed. “And the key is getting involved early on.”

She said all the superintendents present were sincere in their concerns and interests in putting students first.

“When we all work together, we strengthen our region,” she said. “It’s time to put competition aside and make sure all kids in this area come to kindergarten ready to learn.”

Shourds said the first order of business is to put together an alignment team (A Team) for education. She said there will be one representative from all 12 school districts and an additional eight people from the public, including parents, day care workers, etc.

“We need to define what kindergarten ready is,” she said. “We then hope to adopt that meaning at all 12 corporations. This is the first thing all the superintendents want the A Team to tackle.”

Once that is defined, then the team can discuss why students are not ready. She said some examples are that the children aren’t in organized day care or parents aren’t knowledgeable on what their child needs to know for school.

“We need to identify those factors that keep us from reaching our goals,” said Shourds. “Then we will know what the biggest issue is and we will tackle it first. Once we determine the problem, there will be a tactical plan to decide what we are going to do.”

She said because the population in the area is so transient, it is important to get everyone on the same page.

“I really feel by having superintendents involved with this from the very beginning, it will be easier to adopt this in the long run,” she said.

Shourds said if they can get training done with local preschools and day care providers it will help get everyone focused on the same goal.

She said it will take at least a year after it is enacted to see if what they are doing works. 

“If we can implement these changes in 2018, we will follow up in 2019 and see where we are,” she said.

Shourds said she is thankful to the Washington County Community Foundation for helping to fund the efforts of ASI.

More stories will be written as ASI takes off and begins to work in the communities and tackling different focus areas.

For more information about ASI, visit http://www.alignmentusa.org/southern-indiana.