Think you have ideas for improving the Dawson County School System? Tomorrow night, youll have a chance to share them.

The Dawson County School System will host a strategic planning meeting from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Dawson County Middle School. The meeting will serve as a jumping-off point for creating a five-year working plan for the system, according to Superintendent Dr. Damon Gibbs.

The community input is vital to ensuring that we develop a plan that meets the needs of all our students, he said.

Tony Arasi of the Georgia School Boards Association will begin the meeting with an overview of what a strategic-planning process looks like. Then Gibbs will present a report on the school system, which will include the budget, organizational structure and testing highlights from the 2013-2014 school year.

From there, attendees will break out into small groups with a set of discussion questions. Questions will deal with challenges faced by the school system and students, what Dawson County does well, and what needs improvement.

Facilitators of the small groups are a mix of community members and school district staff.

We will hopefully get great feedback from the breakout groups, Gibbs said. Thursdays meeting will kick off the planning process.

But even if someone cant attend the planning meeting, Gibbs said his or her opinion is still vital. We will be placing a link to a survey on the system website to gather feedback from any stakeholders that couldnt attend due to conflicts with their schedules, he said. The goal is for every stakeholder to be heard.

Although the plan the system hopes to create is for five years, it will be reviewed every year. We want to be a working plan that adapts to the needs of our students, Gibbs said. It will be reviewed at least on a yearly basis with our school and system level governance teams.

For more information, you may call the board of education office at 706-265-3246.