MARYSVILLE — The Marysville School District’s community engagement events on Tuesday, May 14, and Thursday, May 16, drew as many as 70 and 50 attendees, respectively, as part of what MSD Board President Chris Nation deemed “phase two” of the district’s current transition.

“Phase one was the superintendent search,” said Nation, who hopes that the two meetings will help generate a transitional document for incoming MSD Superintendent Dr. Becky Berg, in time for her to start the job on July 1. “We want to give her some idea of what we’ve done over the course of the past nine years with Dr. Nyland, in terms of how we’ve improved student achievement and community relations, as well as feedback from the community about what they think we should be doing next.”

Pam Posey, who served as the community engagement events’ facilitator, framed the discussions in terms of “roots and wings,” from the roots of positive past accomplishments that the community would want to build on, to their dreams of achievements that they hope will be able to take wing in the future.

“Each table had a mix of school staff members, parents and community members,” Posey said. “Each table was designed to be a microcosm of the larger community, and our goal is for all the community’s input to be framed as a message to the new superintendent, to help them know how to move forward, so they’ll be able to hit the ground running.”

Nation summed up the main priorities that were voiced during the community engagement events as fostering student achievement for every student, keeping the community involved in the district, and maintaining open, honest lines of communication between the district and the community.

“Our hope is that, when Dr. Berg arrives, phase three will be her doing focus groups of her own with the community,” Nation said. “We’d like to build on that momentum, so that she can address whatever the four or five main ideas gleaned from this turn out to be, not just for our next set of four-year goals as a district, but also to target our resources with the awareness of where we want to be in 10 years.”

“We can’t do this alone,” outgoing MSD Superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland told attendees of the May 16 community engagement event. “It takes the entire community to help us build higher and stronger on what’s already here.”