LEBANON — The Lebanon Community School District is inviting the community to begin the new year with a new focus for the school district that residents will help design.

The district plans to work with a Eugene consulting firm, True North, to design a community visioning process that will take place through most of 2010. The work is estimated at $20,000 over this school year and next, a cost approved Thursday by the Lebanon School Board.

The consulting fee likely would have been higher, Chairman Russ McUne said, but Superintendent Rob Hess plans to take on part of the data collection himself.

The visioning process is expected to be launched in January. By reaching out to residents in a variety of ways — public meetings, online surveys, school newsletters and reports — the district hopes to have community consensus on setting and achieving goals.

In other business Thursday, the board decided to use an abbreviated evaluation process this January for Hess because he has been with the district just six months.

Board members voted to use only five of the usual nine criteria for Hess’ first evaluation. The five performance standards are leadership and district culture, policy and governance, communications and community relations, values and ethics of leadership, and labor relations.

The board also canceled its Dec. 3 regular board meeting. Its Dec. 17 meeting will go ahead as planned.

Democrat-Herald