Missoula School District One is preparing to launch its strategic planning process and is asking the public’s help in determining the direction the district should go to best serve the community and its students.

Communications Director Hatton Littman said the best place to start is by going online to take a brief survey.

“The very first thing that people can do this week, right away, is to go to our website and they can complete a survey,” said Littman. “We’ve also shared that survey with the public news media. You can get a link to it off of our Facebook page, our Twitter or our Instagram pages. We really want to make sure that for those people who can’t show up in person, they can at least take the time to complete that survey.”

Littman said the survey will help prepare the public for several open meetings planned by the school district.

“The surveys are open for the next two weeks, so by next Friday we’ll be closing that down in preparation for our first public meeting,” she said. “We’ll have three public meetings. One is January 23rd, one in February 25th and the third will be on March 25th. They’re all from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and all will be held in our business building on South Avenue.”

Littman reflected that previous strategic planning sessions have dealt with the various bond issues and building and remodeling projects that have mostly been completed.

“We want to community to reaffirm that we really are about making sure every student, regardless of their circumstance or ability, can achieve their full potential when they’re in our school district,” she said. “I think we’re going to stick to that core belief, and in the terms of the ‘how do we get there’, ‘what are we going to do’ and ‘what are the programs we will enact’, a lot of that will be based on the community input we receive.”

Littman said for anyone who can’t participate in person in the public meetings, to follow along on the MCPS YouTube channel, and that MCAT will be recording each session.

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