BV developing ‘Profile of a Graduate’

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The Buckeye Valley Local School District, in collaboration with the community, is developing a strategic plan to give students the skills they will need to address the increasingly complex work environment after graduation.

“We’re looking at the skills we want Buckeye Valley graduates to have regardless if they go to a two-year school, a four-year school, the military, or go directly into the workforce,” said Superintendent Andrew Miller. “We tried to bring in people from all sorts of different backgrounds to help us figure out what kind of things we need to be teaching the kids.”

Miller said the group has been working on the project, the “Profile of a Graduate,” for the past three months. He said the group is made up of entrepreneurs, business people, individuals from area universities and Buckeye Valley staff.

“They are all Buckeye Valley affiliated whether through their kids or they live in the community,” he said. “It’s the people who are actually hiring Buckeye Valley students.”

The school district enlisted Dynamix to help with the process of developing the profile.

According to the Dynamix website, the team works with schools and districts to assist in the development of strategic goals and improve meeting effectiveness.

Tom Fry, Ph.D., an effectiveness coach with Dynamix, said he ran the gambit in his 24 years in education. He said he was a high school math and science teacher, a curriculum director, director of research and accountability, and an assistant superintendent. One of the districts he worked in was the Olentangy Local School District.

“I found that I would struggle through meetings that seem to go on and on forever, or we would rehash topics,” he said. “I started to learn better ways to make more effective meetings and balanced participation. It started working well, and … five years ago I started doing it full-time.”

Fry said the plan doesn’t capture everything.

“Just the most important things, the more specific skills that kids are ideally going to leave with,” he said. “This is still a draft. We’ll get some feedback and make adjustments. Then we’ll send out a survey to the entire community, staff, and some students as well.”

During the three meetings, Fry guided the collaborative through a serious of exercises and activities to develop four areas of focus for the “Profile of a Graduate” draft.

The first area is “learning and innovation” — helping the student to focus on being an “effective communicator,” a “creative thinker,” and a “productive collaborator.” The second area teaches the student to become a “local and global citizen” who will make “responsible decisions” and be “socially engaged.” The third area focuses on the “life and career” of the student, teaching them to be an “adaptable problem solver” and a “resourceful self-starter.” The fourth is “social-emotional,” teaching the student to be a “resilient leader” and “self-aware learner.”

“We need to look at the global impact,” said Laryssa Hook, a member of the collaborative.

Jessica Sharp writes a thought under a Post-it Note that was placed on one of four posters used in an exercise to define Buckeye Valley’s Profile of a Graduate.
http://www.delgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2018/10/web1_DSC_4602_1-copy.jpgJessica Sharp writes a thought under a Post-it Note that was placed on one of four posters used in an exercise to define Buckeye Valley’s Profile of a Graduate. D. Anthony Botkin | The Gazette

By D. Anthony Botkin

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Contact D. Anthony Botkin at 740-413-0902. Follow him on Twitter @dabotkin.

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