ROCK SPRINGS — Sweetwater County School District No. 1 Superintendent Kelly McGovern and Chief Academic Officer Wanda Maloney outlined objectives for the first year of the 2018-2023 Strategic Plan at the district board meeting this week.

“It’s a training year,” McGovern said.

Nonetheless, McGovern provided a list of goals and objectives that the district wants to achieve moving forward.

The list includes increasing awareness of educational and career opportunities in Sweetwater County, and instilling and reinforcing employability skills and a drive for learning.

Improved writing, filling out an application form, and interviewing for a job were among the skills Maloney said students need to be taught.

“We need to give students a skill set which will enable them to be successful,” she said.

Improving School Safety

School safety was also a key topic of discussion at the meeting.

The entire staff will be required to attend a school safety training session led by first responders during an in-service day October 19.

Among the training topics that day: fostering more positive relationships among teachers, staff and students.

Although the goals and objectives for the Strategic Plan have been laid out, McGovern spoke out against becoming too rigid.

She again emphasized that Year One was a “training year” and that moving forward, the district would need to be flexible in how it went about implementing the strategic plan, including the process for achieving the end objectives, and not just the end objectives themselves.

“You’re focused on the touchdown, and not how you get down the field,” McGovern warned.

Board member Emma Waldner thanked McGovern and Maloney for their inclusion of community stakeholders in their construction of the new Strategic Plan, and expressed hope that stakeholder inclusion would continue.