The Ironwood Area School Board held a special meeting last evening. The meeting was held to set goals for the next two or three years. The board routinely revisits its goals as it should. The new bond issue for the addition on L.L.Wright is the result of the previous goal setting session two years ago.

The goal setting meeting was conducted by Bruce Mayle, Superintendent of the G.O.I.S.D.

The first thing discussed was improving academic scores. It appears that as compared to its peers the IASD is not doing that well academically. Jim Rayner gave the board members data that compared the Ironwood School District to the other school districts within the Gogebic Ontonagon Intermediate School District. The other districts were not named but only identified as A, B, C, etc.

Interestingly, the Ironwood School District is only in the middle of the pack. The high school scores have been declining. You may recall that just recently Ironwood was singled out as the only Upper Peninsula school district to get a failing grade. Only six school districts statewide failed. It was just one year ago that a certain taskforce tried to raid the coffers of Bessemer and Wakefield School Districts.

The Number one goal of the board is to improve students academic standing.

The Second goal set by the board is to be fiscally stable. Which will be more challenging as the years pass and the state government continues to slash the education budget. The latest cuts to state aid will cause the IASD to go into deficit and will cause more cuts in the teaching staff and programs. Much larger cuts are expected next year and thereafter.

The third and final goal is to find a new superintendent that will meet the needs of the district and will be compatible with the first two goals.