Henning School to look into new strategic plan
News | Published on March 25, 2025 at 12:46pm EDT | Author: henningmaster
0By Chad Koenen
Publisher
The Henning School District could be looking to develop a new strategic plan for the future.
During its regularly scheduled meeting last Tuesday night, the Henning School Board discussed the potential of developing a new strategic plan for the school district. The previous strategic plan expired in 2020 and can help the school district look at future needs and wants from both the staff and students at the school district, but also the community as a whole.
As part of her report to the school board, Henning School Superintendent Melissa Sparks said a strong strategic plan can provide a guide to continue to grow the district into the future.
“Our previous strategic plan only covered the district through 2020 and I believe it is essential to create a new road map that will guide our district’s growth, student success and long-term planning,” she wrote to the school board. “A strong strategic plan will ensure that we are continuously improving and preparing our students for the future.”
Sparks said there are a number of ways the school district could develop a strategic plan, but the last time the last time around the school board had two retired school superintendent’s come into the school and help guide the process. She said the cost of developing the plan would be between $7,000-8,000, but she felt the money would be well worth the investment.
“I think there is benefit of having an outsider come in because they look at things through a different lens,” she said.
Henning School board member Kim Haugen said the last time the school district developed a strategic plan the outside advisors held community meetings at the school to gain feedback from a wide variety of community members to help and develop the strategic plan. Haugen said the biggest challenge was getting people to attend the meetings, but the information the school district received really helped the entire process.
The school district will gather more information about developing a strategic plan and the hope would be to start the process in the near future.
In other news
• Accepted the following donations: $100 from Henning Township, $50 from Thrivent Choice Chapter of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and $100 from an anonymous donor for the teacher’s lounge refresh.
• Accepted the retirement of head cook Lori Klever.
• Heard graduation will be held on Friday, May 23 at 7 p.m. at the school.
• Heard the Henning High School Band received three superior ratings and was named best of the section in mallets at the large group contest.
• Heard the school district is exploring the possibility of adding firearms safety as a course option for sixth grade students next year. Given the importance of firearm safety the school district is weighing whether to offer an in-person, teacher-led course, as opposed to the current online-only format.
• Approved seeking bids to replace the high school gym floor. The school board has discussed replacing the gym floor for a number of years, which was estimated to cost approximately $180,000 last year and has dramatically risen in cost over the past few years. The floor dates back approximately 60 years and may not be able to be sanded and refinished anymore due to its age and condition.
• Heard its financial report from Freshwater Education’s Jordan Anderson, who stated the school district has an unassigned balance in the general fund of 17.81 percent of all general fund expenditures. That is slightly below the school district’s policy of maintaining a 25 percent unassigned general fund balance, but is slightly higher than where the school district began the year. The school district also heard that its average daily membership of students was 366.55 students in 2024, which is slightly lower than last year, but about on par from where it has been on average over the past 15 years.