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The Dallas County School District held a series of community meetings on Monday night to allow parents and stakeholders a chance to give input on the district’s strategic planning.

Andrea Heard, a consultant with K. Allen Consulting based in New Orleans, said the purpose of the meeting was to give parents, grandparents and guardians a safe place to discuss issues facing the school district.

“Our goal tonight was to give parents an opportunity to be involved in the process and to provide a safe space to talk about the district,” Heard said about her session at Tipton-Durant Middle School. “All we are trying to do is gather data so that we can help the district develop its strategic plan.”

Town halls were held at Tipton-Durant Middle School, Martin Middle School and Keith Middle and High School on Monday evening. Other consultants like Heard were present at the other meetings to facilitate discussion about the district.

In addition to those meetings, Heard said they have been talking with focus groups of students and teachers to gather more data. Specifically, she said she visited with several groups at Southside High School prior to the meeting Monday. Some of the groups were teachers while others were students.

And while the group gathered for the town hall meeting may have been small, Superintendent Anthony Sampson said others will be filling out surveys online. They will also have be able to have private meetings with consultants.

“What we want to do is to gather as much information as we can about our school district,” Sampson said to the parents gathered at the meeting, “Our goal is to develop this strategic plan so the next leader can walk in and pick up the blueprint that says this is what the community said they wanted to do, and this is how we’re going to do it.”

Sampson was asking parents to tell them everything about the district, the good and the bad. Some of the questions focused on the greatest strengths of the district, the areas for growth and what makes the district stand out.

Sampson wanted to make sure that parents were comfortable about talking with the facilitators.

“So if you want to say, ‘Ms. Andrea, I want to talk to you privately by myself. I want to tell you all of my heart’s heaviness,’” Sampson said. “Yes, that’s the purpose of this. That’s K.Allen Consulting’s purpose to gather that information, to quantify it to say that this is what the community said, and nobody can take away what the community said. This is what they said, and they’ll come in and report on it. Then we’ll be able to build and go from there.”

The survey is also available online at bit.ly/DCSSFamily.

For additional information, residents are asked to email info@kallenconsultants.org or call 504-330-3280.