School board members explored the potential of the year ahead Tuesday while considering district goals for 2019.

Albert Lea Area Schools Superintendent Mike Funk recommended district goals include:

• Further development of leaders at building and team levels with the intention of increasing student learning and proficiency at grade levels throughout the district

• Culminate community conversations regarding a high school curricular redesign that meets the needs of student and local industry by 2021

• Attract and retain talent throughout the school system

• Maintain a 14 percent fund balance

• Establish a district-wide community relations effort, with an emphasis on visiting each smaller community within the district with a study session or board meeting this calendar year

• Emphasize board development through additional Minnesota School Board Association training, a board retreat or study session

The “curricular redesign” is a continuation of the district’s efforts toward further career and technical education through the Pathways model it has been exploring and for which it has set aside an administrator on special assignment.

“We’ve made some small shifts, but we really haven’t created the more of a CTE pathway that I think should be available to us — to our students,” Funk said.

Funk said the district conversation on day care — as well as an on-site clinic — are efforts already put forth to attract talented employees. School board member Angie Hanson said she would also like to see the district focus on morale for employees already present.

“I would like to kind of make sure we’re reaching out to the current staff and trying to keep them,” she said.

Both Hanson and fellow board member Dennis Dieser said they like the idea of visiting smaller communities through school board meetings in other towns. Funk said the need for this outreach was seen following the $24.615 million bond referendum in May, passed to improve athletic facilities offered at Hammer Complex and expand Halverson Elementary School’s gym, among other, smaller projects. The referendum showed low support from outside communities.

Dieser said bringing the meeting to smaller communities could help the district engage more with their residents.

“I think the outreach would be beneficial for the overall district community,” Funk said.

Board members came with ideas of their own. School board members Neal Skaar, Dave Klatt and Dieser all mentioned emphasis on extracurricular activities. Skaar said he would like to see more emphasis on support for activities programs, while Klatt would like to see continued research into offering activities at younger levels, he said.

Board member Jill Marin asked the list included a more strongly worded proposal for student achievement after seeing the district fall short of the test result goal set by the district last year: to increase growth and proficiency at every grade level in the district on standardized testing over the 2016-17 results.

Funk said the test results, as reported by building principals in the fall, were not what they had hoped.

However, he noted district progress in other goals: a values identification process that led the district to name respect, integrity, compassion and collaboration as its four values, coaching building leaders to implement decision-making at the site level to better meet student and staff needs, maintain the board fund balance of 14 percent and collaborate with the community to come up with a strategy for Hammer Complex improvements.

In other action:

• The board approved an edited graduation requirement policy, which Executive Director of Administrative Services Kathy Niebuhr said was edited largely to exclude an expired testing requirement last applicable to the class of 2015, who have now aged out of the K-12 school system. Credit-wise, graduation requirements have not changed, Niebuhr said. This is the first of three policies the district will review in forthcoming meetings.

• Funk reported legislative session goals as identified by the Minnesota Rural Education Association. Concerns include the general education formula allowance, local shares of school facility costs, the teacher crisis, special education funding and a mismatch between academic standards and providing choices for students.

• School board members reported to each other on sessions they attended at the Minnesota School Board Association conference last week.