Exit interviews show positive school district atmosphere

The results of exit interviews with 11 former staff members in the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District eased the concerns of School Board members.

Retired Marshall School District Supt. Barb Sramek presented the results at last week’s board meeting.

Reasons for people leaving included retirement, health, moving, taking a new role or having more flexibility and time off.

Board member Laura Schieffer said the board had been worried that people were leaving because they were unsatisfied with the district and community.

“To me, these are really good results,” she said. “We’re doing a good job.”

Board member Nancy Niebauer asked how the board can create roles staff members are seeking.

Sramek said that could be a function of the district’s size. At Marshall, she said, she supported people who sought out new opportunities, such as instructional coaches. The district only had two and wasn’t adding any, so people left to take those kinds of jobs.

The most satisfying parts of the job were developing relationships with children and working with the staff, families and the community. Employees said they liked their jobs and felt supported by the board.

Among the negatives were changes in education, including state policies and the student learning objective and professional practice goals.

Schieffer said the theory behind those initiatives are great, “goal setting and using data to monitor those goals, but it is cumbersome.”

While she didn’t want to speak for the state Department of Public Instruction, Sramek said, “The implementation of this process has not gone the way that I think they intended or wanted it to go.”

For those state programs, board president Chad Hoopman said the board has to understand the issues before addressing them.

“How can we influence that — if we better understand it as board members and are communicating with our legislators to try to potentially tweak things to try to improve on that,” he said.

“Can we change? Can we impact the things that bother people? Or are some of them not changeable and it’s just tolerance?”

Participation in the interviews was voluntary.