ROCKWALL — Rockwall Independent School District Board of Trustees conducted a meeting at the Administration Building at 7:30 p.m. on Monday to discuss happenings in the district.

The meeting started promptly at 7:30 p.m. in which Superintendent Jeff Bailey gave an award of appreciation to Board Member Dr. David Loftis.

“As president he has provided strong leadership and direction for our trustees and our school district,” said Bailey. “Tonight we want to thank him for his dedicated and willing service as president of the Rockwall ISD Board of Trustees for four terms.”

Loftis received a clock from Bailey.

Next, two men from K12 Insight, Dr. Daniel Carter and Kevin Scott, gave a presentation on based on the school climate survey that was conducted recently. The topics surveyed were Student Support, Academic Preparation, Facility Relations and Support, School Leadership, Parent Engagement, School Operations, and Safety and Behavior.

Teachers, parents and students were surveyed as a means of helping the board know where the district stands with people.

Bailey said the results were just preliminary.

“Obviously we’re doing good things,” Bailey said. “But we have room for improvements.”

Bailey said principals are working on their individual campus reports to make each school better.

The most important part of the meeting was the update on the five year Strategic Plan, which was made by RISD Executive Director of Communications and Marketing, Sheri Fowler.

The plan was adopted in 2010 by the RISD Board of Trustees and will continue on through the 2015 school year.

There are eight strategies on which the district must focus. They are Environment, Ethics, Diversity, Communication, Safety, Facilities, Funding, and Technology.

Fowler made a presentation to the board that broke down each strategy and showed what the district had done so far.

Fowler said in the area of Environment RISD wants to have an academically engaging environment.

“We want to make sure we are using technology effectively,” Fowler said. “Which we have started to with VoiceThread, a program students are using.”

VoiceThread is an interactive multimedia slideshow. In a school setting, students can make comments in 5 ways, doodle on slides, or whatever the teacher wants for them to do. It’s a way of interacting the students and teacher.

Fowler said opportunities for discovery were important for the students.

“We have had new field trips for our secondary students that lead to more career pathways,” Fowler said. “We have career themed days and we also have job shadowing.”

As a means of improving their ethical stance the board adopted the Code of Expectations in October of 2011, which was presented to campus administrators.

Fowler said they have plans to further extend the code to all the campuses in the coming school year.

“We want to make sure our whole district understands our commitment to ethical values,” said Fowler.

For Communication, the district upgraded their website this year.  One area that is growing is web streaming.

Fowler said the two graduations were posted online for people to view.

“We had about 200 people per graduation watching,” said Fowler. “We received several emails from military personnel, family overseas, thanking us for our efforts to help them see their family members graduate.”

In April the school district was faced with the tornado crisis and keeping students safe. Fowler said the district is working on a two-way radio system to help better communicate in times of crisis. The radio systems will improve their Safety section of the Strategic Plan.

For Funding, the district wants to monitor maintenance and operations, making sure they are efficient and effective.

Funding was a big topic because RISD is working with Energy Education, Inc, a company with a desire to increase classroom resources by decreasing the amount spent on budget line items.

Fowler said Energy Education would help them save over the years.

“We are projecting a gross savings of $5.7 million over the next five years,” said Fowler.

The last topic, Technology, was evaluated by surveying the campuses, teachers and administrators to find out what was needed in each grade level.

A new program, Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) was extended to middle schools this past year.

Fowler said Microsoft and Apple have contributed programs at a discounted cost.

“We wanted to provide students with programs that are using at school, at home,” Fowler said.

Once Fowler’s presentation was complete, board members expressed their gratitude to Fowler and the others who worked on the Strategic Plan presentation.

The meeting concluded at 8:45 p.m.