At the USD 489 Board of Education work session on Monday, December 2nd, the board will discuss proposed changes to the organization of the district’s administration and support staff.  Reorganization and better-defining the reporting structure of the district was just one suggestion made by Randy Gustafson, who had been hired as a consultant to conduct a review of the school district’s operation and make recommendations.

Superintendent Dean Katt told Hays Post that Gustafson met with staff, reviewed policies, handbooks and processes, and designed a list of recommendations he felt would benefit the district.  From those recommendations, Gustafson created a 38 page report which he presented at the USD 489 retreat held on Saturday November 16th.  One area which he felt the district was deficient was establishing clear structure for each department.

According to Gustafson’s report;

“USD 489 is a large local government organization, with a budget approaching $50,000,000.00, with employment over 700, over 2000 students, in a city/county of more than 27,000 residents, and it’s been run as if it were a district of 100 students in the most remote area of the state.  There is there is little oversight, direction, supervision, coordination or direction given to its departments of employees.”

Gustafson cited kitchen, custodial, and IT personnel as examples where direct supervision and oversight is unclear to even the staff in those roles.  He proposed creating Standard Operating Procedures for each position to better define each role.  At the retreat, it was determined that the district would also benefit from an organizational chart to define the reporting structure of staff.

At the retreat, Gustafson’s report and the resulting discussion were used to set various SMART Goals as part of a USD 489 action plan.  The action plan will be visited throughout the school year.  Katt said that the goal of the plan isn’t to look back and see who or what was wrong, but to move forward.

“We need to forget about the past, we have the plan, we have the recommendations; that’s what we’re going to focus on and go forward.  Let’s quit dwelling on what’s happened in the past, whether you agree, disagree whatever.  All these things on here are good.”