Some community members have yet to hear about Natrona County School District's organizational assessment, despite what superintendent Joel Dvorak said was the district's best effort in trying to get the information out.

"We're really trying hard to let people know we very much value this organizational assessment," Dvorak said. "The last thing we want to have anyone perceive is that this is not available."

At the board's work session Monday evening, Dvorak and trustees said they are still hearing from people who had no idea the assessment happened, or what the results were.

"There were still people that said, "I didn't know you were doing that," " Dvorak said. "We're going to make some more pushes to get this information out."

In other business, the board heard an update from the committee charged with pulling together information about the district's new elementary school.

Kelly Eastes, the school district's community partnerships manager, briefly reviewed the results surveys the district has conducted to find out what the community wants to see in the new school.

The groups surveyed favored hands-on learning, play as learning, visiting presenters to classes and integrating technology into the school, Eastes said.

In addition, there was a positive response for having outside programs, such as the Boys and Girls Club or a branch of the public library, housed in the school.

On the flip side, items such as worksheets and lectures did not appeal to those surveyed. Staff members surveyed showed that fine arts, foreign language, entrepreneurship and International Baccalaureate classes were also programs not favored for the new elementary.

Trustee Steve Degenfelder asked the elementary team to look at current programs in the district and note their strengths.

"We have parents griping about we can't get into this school or this school," Degenfelder said. "You've got some definite preferences."

Reach education reporter Jasa Santos at (307) 266-0593 or at Jasa.Santos@trib.com

NCSD's organizational assessment

If you haven't taken a look at the full results of the school district's organizational assessment, you can do so by logging on to natronaschools.org.

You can find a link to the results by scrolling down the Web site's main page, under the heading 'NCSD releases complete organizational assessment results.'

The report is also available on the Star-Tribune's Web site, by logging on to trib.com/docs/org_assess.pdf.

If you haven't taken a look at the full results of the school district's organizational assessment, you can do so by logging on to natronaschools.org. You can find a link to the results by scrolling down the Web site's main page, under the heading 'NCSD releases complete organizational assessment results.']]->