By Mary Alice Murphy

Silver Schools Associate Superintendent Curtis Clough led off the final Community Dialogue session for this school year.

He thanked Scott Terry and the Silver City-Grant County Chamber of Commerce that manages the Grant County Veterans Memorial Business and Conference Center for hosting the several sessions held this year.

"Today is our action planning meeting," Clough said. "We have partners from outside the region who are willing to help us."

He noted what is happening in the town of Silver City, which invested in Better City. "A workforce and economic development committee is going to form and meet the first time the week of April 22. We can't do what we need to do without significant dollars. We will incorporate what the district has done and partner with Silver City. Adam Hughes of Better City will chair the committee. Maker spaces are a big priority in Silver City and at the schools. The group also wants to work with Western New Mexico University to build youth entrepreneurship. We will start next week."

Clough said the Silver School SB9 levy is up for renewal this year. "It needs to be renewed to bring in the technology that we need. SB9 funding will support the public and private partnerships that are working. I also met with Workforce Solutions. We talked about moving them into our middle school to consolidate them from three separate places."

"Today, we will break up in small groups and create actionable plans," Clough said. "We are developing the action steps to keep us moving forward. You need to do the brainstorming first. We need a separate plan for communications. Come up with strategies on who we need to communicate with."

Each group had its own questions to brainstorm and then write suggestions for the actionable plan. "I ask you to generate one key objective. When you finish that you can go on to 2, 3 and 4, but please get one done first. Create a sequence of actions that are systematic and deliberate to fulfill your objectives. These," he said about the forms he handed out to fill out, "are the theoretical frameworks. Align your actions to your key objectives. They will overlap. Some can merge. For instance, employee engagement will be in with communications. Please complete all sections of the template. I will take continuing feedback. Identify the key milestone and the reporting element for each quarter over the two-year cycle that we anticipate, but it may be shorter. The data doesn't have to be all numbers. It can be qualitative and observations."

For 90 minutes, the groups hashed out what to put into the templates and filled them out.

For the closing activities, Clough said career readiness is the initiative for the cross-sector coordinating strategy. "We will get subgroups together to keep it going. We will try to coordinate all groups in a planned way."

Content on the Beat

WARNING: All articles and photos with a byline or photo credit are copyrighted to the author or photographer. You may not use any information found within the articles without asking permission AND giving attribution to the source. Photos can be requested and may incur a nominal fee for use personally or commercially.

Disclaimer: If you find errors in articles not written by the Beat team but sent to us from other content providers, please contact the writer, not the Beat. For example, obituaries are always provided by the funeral home or a family member. We can fix errors, but please give details on where the error is so we can find it. News releases from government and non-profit entities are posted generally without change, except for legal notices, which incur a small charge.

NOTE: If an article does not have a byline, it was written by someone not affiliated with the Beat and then sent to the Beat for posting.

Images: We have received complaints about large images blocking parts of other articles. If you encounter this problem, click on the title of the article you want to read and it will take you to that article's page, which shows only that article without any intruders. 

New Columnists: The Beat continues to bring you new columnists. And check out the old faithfuls who continue to provide content.

Newsletter: If you opt in to the Join GCB Three Times Weekly Updates option above this to the right, you will be subscribed to email notifications with links to recently posted articles.

Submitting to the Beat

Those new to providing news releases to the Beat are asked to please check out submission guidelines at https://www.grantcountybeat.com/about/submissions. They are for your information to make life easier on the readers, as well as for the editor.

Advertising: Don't forget to tell advertisers that you saw their ads on the Beat.

Classifieds: We have changed Classifieds to a simpler option. Check periodically to see if any new ones have popped up. Send your information to editor@grantcountybeat.com and we will post it as soon as we can. Instructions and prices are on the page.

Editor's Notes

It has come to this editor's attention that people are sending information to the Grant County Beat Facebook page. Please be aware that the editor does not regularly monitor the page. If you have items you want to send to the editor, please send them to editor@grantcountybeat.com. Thanks!

Here for YOU: Consider the Beat your DAILY newspaper for up-to-date information about Grant County. It's at your fingertips! One Click to Local News. Thanks for your support for and your readership of Grant County's online news source—www.grantcountybeat.com

Feel free to notify editor@grantcountybeat.com if you notice any technical problems on the site. Your convenience is my desire for the Beat.  The Beat totally appreciates its readers and subscribers!  

Compliance: Because you are an esteemed member of The Grant County Beat readership, be assured that we at the Beat continue to do everything we can to be in full compliance with GDPR and pertinent US law, so that the information you have chosen to give to us cannot be compromised.