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Schools

New Committee to Help Schools Prepare for Future

The school district will appoint locals for its strategic planning committee to organize sustainability efforts for the future, and optimize educational potential.

A fresh team will be helping the Hermosa Beach City School District innovate and revamp procedure for school years ahead. The school district plans to appoint people for its new strategic planning committee at a meeting on Sept. 11.

The committee will include some teachers, classified employees, parents and community members to look at the sustainability of the school district as the economic and communal environment changes over time.

"There are a lot of things we need it for, but the decision regarding the first part was looking at the mission and values of the school district and seeing if we were in line with other districts," said Carleen Beste, a member of the school board. "We also wanted to look at the sustainability of the school district."

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She added that the school district has spent part of its reserves to balance its budget, "and if you do that on a regular basis, you get a big problem."

After evaluating the mission and values of the school district, the committee will look at the district's funding model to see whether or not changes need to be made, and how.

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This comprehensive procedure will also look at trends in the community over the long term, to plan out future goals for local schools, according to Superintendent Bruce Newlin.

"We'll look at economic trends, population trends and the economic situation in the long term," he said.

After observing the long term, Newlin said that the committee could pinpoint where, when and how the school district can improve for the next three to five years.

"It'll give us direction," Beste said. "If we can't sustain ourselves, then we need to find out what we should do to provide the best possible education for our children."

Although Newlin doesn't know who will be on the committee yet, he said that the board had a number of names put forth and remains hopeful.

"It will help us focus the resources and the attention of the district to support the quality and type of education that our students need," he said.

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