Superintendent highlights benefits of extracurricular activities, long term strategic plan to school board

During the August 21 Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District (MSBSD) meeting, the new president of the Mat-Su Education Association (MSEA), Justin LaCoss took a moment to introduce himself to board members.

“This is a great school year,” he said, “I’m really excited for the different changes that are coming. But I also appreciate that this is a year where we can build our relationship working back on issues.”

MSBSD Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani took a few minutes to speak about extracurricular activities.

“I just really wanted to highlight the importance of extracurricular activities for student engagement,” he noted, adding, “When you engage students in school, they stay in school. And if they stay in school, and they attend regularly, they graduate on time.”

Dr. Trani said that the district provides opportunities for students to participate in extracurricular activities not only to promote engagement, but also because they can often provide students an opportunity to travel around the state.

“You learn so much through athletics in our state. And of course, the values that we try to teach all kids-integrity, respect, perseverance, leadership, teamwork, and inclusivity.”

He then said that high school athletics also has long term impacts, including persevering through hardships and pushing past known limitations, embracing a growth mindset, and fitness.

Dr. Trani then presented stats on current high school participation in MSBSD athletics, stating that there are 1,360 students involved in athletics, and while almost half of those numbers are from Colony High School, he was impressed with the overall numbers.

He then broke down those numbers by gender, revealing that girls represent 51% of the students involved in sports, just edging out the boys at 49%

“I know there were times in the past when that just wasn’t the case,” he said, recalling his own days at Cordova in the early 1980s when the numbers were very different. “It’s great to see that this is all schools, and both boys and girls participating in athletics.”

The superintendent said that tackle football was the biggest fall sport, followed by cross-country running and volleyball. He made mention that there are 95 girls playing flag football across four schools, and he included marching band in those numbers for athletics.

“I think our athletic program is alive and well.”

He also unveiled the Long Term Strategic Plan for 2025-2029, which establishes goals for the superintendent, long range objectives, and action steps as well as summarizes operational priorities. These items were reviewed at the School Board Retreat on August 7, 2024.

The long term goals include student achievement, reading proficiency, staff alignment, high expectations, and parent engagement. Dr. Trani also presented action steps along with each objective to help lay the best course for reaching his goals.

“What I hate is when you build a strategic plan and it sits on the shelf until five years and then you take it off. Each year, we’ve gotten better at it and this, I think, is our best attempt yet.”

He said the plan will be to report quarterly on each of the action steps he laid out in the 8-page plan.

The next school board meeting will be held on September 4 at 6 pm at the MSBSD Administration Building in Palmer.