Successful 5-Year External Visitation
Launch the media gallery 1 playerOn Tuesday, March 17th and Wednesday, March 18th the district facilitated an external visitation as a part of our continuous school improvement process. These external visitations are a required part of our accreditation process and they typically occur every 5 years.
Our external team consisted of Erin Sieh (elementary principal, Freeman Public Schools), Dani Beerbohm (director of learning, Ashland-Greenwood Public Schools), Jen McNalley (director of mental health and wellness, ESU 5 Beatrice), and Aaron Delhay (director of technology, Freeman Public Schools).
As a part of the visitation process, the external team toured our facilities, observed classrooms, and visited with numerous groups of stakeholders including staff, students, parents, and community members. The goal of the external team was to learn about our school along with our school improvement efforts and processes. At the conclusion of their visit, the visitation team presented a brief exit report to our staff in order to share their observations and their preliminary recommendations. A copy of the slides that the external team shared during their exit report can be viewed by clicking here: EXIT REPORT SLIDES
The external team was very complimentary of every aspect of our school. The external team provided positive feedback in a wide variety of areas, but a clear set of themes emerged from the feedback that they provided in their report. Those themes included 1) Heartland students are consistently learning and performing at high levels across multiple domains; 2) Heartland students are proud of their school and they are very appreciative of the adults that show up for them every single day; 3) our staff is competent, compassionate, professional, and positive; and 4) a safe, positive, caring, people-centered culture is clearly embedded into how we live and learn here at Heartland Community Schools.
Suggestions were provided by the external team relating to how we might look at determining our next academic achievement goals and how we might continue to build out and formalize some of our very effective systems. We're confident that as we move forward in identifying future goals and next steps that we'll be able to establish clear and actionable goals that are well within our capacity to achieve.
The external team was extremely impressed and, in many cases, envious of the school, the students, and staff that we have here at Heartland. The successful visitation is a reflection of the many years of great work that everybody across our entire organization has contributed toward the betterment of our school and for the benefit of our students. There are many people who put a lot of work into making the external visitation a tremendous success. Our school improvement team, our staff, and our students all deserve a great deal of credit for their work, their leadership, and their assistance throughout this visitation process.