Dr. LaKesia Boone

What is your number one concern for the upcoming school year?

In regards to safety, I think about many things in Human Resources. The safety of confidential information, the safety of our schools, even the safety around the time of the year. For instance, cold and flu season. When people are sick, they’re out. Obviously as school districts, we think about the safety of our buildings and having adequate people manage those buildings, having safety plans, and school resource officers. In my specific department, I think about the safety of information. We’re in the digital age and many things are moving away from paper to digital, so internet safety. I worry about personnel files and such being compromised. When I think of safety, it’s a multi-faceted question.

For students, they have safeguards on their digital devices to keep them from accessing certain types of websites, only using devices and apps that would provide those protections and having those safeguards on so if someone does by happenstance go into something that has not been vetted yet, it sends an alert so we’re aware of that. For HR specific, I worry about data breaches sometimes. We want to be very careful about anything we use to relay personnel information or would hold personnel information because we want to keep those safeguards of people’s private information in their personnel files.

Where do you see the role of technology in education?

I am one of those people who thoroughly embraces technology, I love technology. I know it can be a hindrance for some coming into the workplace, but I love technology and I’m really getting into AI. I know that’s a scary thing for some people. I haven’t used AI in my work yet, but I believe embracing technology will take us to many different parameters. I will say for myself, since I’ve been here, we’ve gone to a paperless hiring system and that allows me, when I’m not physically in the building, to continue the hiring process, or my staff can continue the hiring process whether we’re in the building or not. Some people like to work weekends or late at night and that allows us to have the flexibility to handle a lot of the district hiring while not sitting in a brick-and-mortar building. AI is going to enhance the way we do many things in the education world. Because it’s so new, until people realize how beneficial it is, I think there will be some concerns about, “hmm, I’m not sure that’s for me.” In my world, I have to be careful of the legal ramifications of using AI. The use of AI will be subject to what those above me decide is appropriate for our use and availability.

How is the district approaching teacher retention and staffing shortages?

It’s interesting that you ask that. One of the things that I really try to do in my role as Assistant Superintendent, as far as retention, is to find a place for everyone. We do realize that all working environments are not ideal and someone may want to leave one building for another or work with a different type of leader. We have 26 schools in Craven County so it does give us the opportunity to promote what I call “re-homing” an individual that maybe wants a growth opportunity. We have schools that have different initiatives, we have Leader In Me schools, we have AVID schools, we have some restart schools, so going to another school is not just about going because of a desire to leave a building, but it may be a desire for professional growth or working in a different kind of culture. I’ve been a teacher, an assistant principal, and a principal. If you’re an educator, you’re at school almost more than you’re at home so I’ve always thought as a classroom or my office as my home away from home. So I say re-homing so you still feel like if you leave a school and go to another school, it’s more than just a transfer of a place to work, it’s actually going to be your home so that’s why I call it re-homing.

At CCS we work with colleges and universities, to go to them for speaking engagements. Campbell University invited the HR department to speak to their graduates. We attend multiple career fairs in an effort to recruit. New teachers come in from college. Craven County is a Purple Star district so we are military affiliated and one of the things that we also do for classified and certified staff is attend job fairs on the base. We send them our job listing so when they have active people coming to our area, they can go ahead and see the types of positions we have open. If they have spouses coming to the area, they can go ahead and look at the job opportunities we have. But mainly, our parentship with colleges and universities are the way we are attracting people, but the retention piece is treating our people good, giving them the opportunities for leadership, the opportunity to re-home if something is not working for them, and just showing them that we really love them and appreciate them for who they are as educators.

We are a district that is big on acknowledgements. So when I say showing them that we love them, we actually have a special board meeting for those who have gotten advanced degrees. We highlight our classified staff in a program called The Essential Piece where people are nominated, they get a t-shirt, a certificate, and they are honored by their peers. We acknowledge them a lot for the work they do whether they’re a principal or a bus driver. We give them a voice. That’s another way that we retain well. We’re a district big on giving people the opportunity to speak and actually listening to their concerns. Maybe not everything that they want to do is approved, but they do have the opportunity through surveys or a leadership role, and many other people in our district take their time to speak because they know that what they say is going to be heard and I think that’s respected.

How does the district go about cultivating an environment that supports mental health?

We have a multitude of answers for that. We have an employee assistance program that we provide to our staff if they have a need that any employee can use, classified or certified. We have nurses and counselors on site for our students in every building. Sometimes more than one counselor in each building depending on the need. We also have, with our Purple Star affiliation, military counselors that our military students can access and use if they don’t want to use a regular type of counselor. Our Superintendent has been gracious enough to understand the stresses that go along with education. She has done what she has been able to do to work time into the calendar to provide us with mental health time where sometimes she’ll tell us to go home early. It’s not all the time. It’s a special treat. But there has been times when she’s told us to go home and be with our families and she doesn’t say it’s for mental health, but we know that’s what it’s for because people struggle and on work days where we still have to do a lot of work for our students, we’ve had opportunities for people to have that time off.

We’ve also built a calendar this year that’s given us more time off for the holiday and an earlier summer. It starts next school year, but we’re going to have more days for planning so that’s less stress, we’ll have more time off during the holidays so that’s more fun, and we’ll get out in May next year so that’s going to give people the opportunity to rest more and have a good summer. Happy people stay. That’s a big part of my role as the assistant superintendent of human resources.

What is your vision for the district in the next five years?

It’s interesting you ask that because we’re at the beginning of our strategic planning and that covers the five year plan for the district. My vision, and I have been asked this as one member of the strategic planning team, is to see Craven County Schools continue to grow. Seventeen out of our 26 schools made academic growth this year; that’s awesome. We’re doing amazing things with our staff and students as leaders in the district and leaders in the classroom, because a lot of our students are leaders as well. I would love to see no low performing schools. I would love to see all schools make growth. It would be wonderful to see no staff vacancies. My vision would be for us to embrace education and all of these changes that would benefit our students and our staff so that we could be change agents in education.