WATERVILLE — Members of the public are invited to a community forum Monday to give input on what they see as the state of city schools and what they envision for the future.

Peter Hallen

The session is part of an ongoing process launched by the Waterville Board of Education and coordinated by Superintendent Peter Hallen and Assistant Superintendent Jen Allen to develop a strategic plan for city schools. It will be held from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Waterville Junior High School.

Hallen and Allen encouraged anyone who is interested in the future of public schools to attend.

“There’s plenty of room and we certainly want as many people there as can make it,” Hallen said Thursday.

The idea for developing a strategic plan began as Hallen and Allen were working on professional development with the Maine School Superintendents Association, where they met monthly to discuss issues including hiring practices, budget development, legal matters and more. The sessions typically started off with talks about leadership in terms of building trust and relationships in the school community, according to Hallen and Allen. Building such trust is a focus of the book “The Trust Imperative: Practical Approaches to School Leadership,” written by Yarmouth school Superintendent Andrew Dolloff, who was at the meetings.

Dolloff asked school leaders attending one session what they had for school strategic plans and, conceding they had none, Hallen and Allen spoke with him afterward and concluded such a plan needed to be developed for Waterville schools.

“We have had him (Dolloff) as a consultant throughout the process,” Hallen said. “He has done one at Yarmouth and helped a dozen or so other schools through the strategic planning process.”

As part of the Waterville process, input was sought from school staff and a community survey was launched about a month ago which garnered about 400 responses from residents, former and current students and others. They were asked questions about what they thought Waterville schools do best, what areas they thought need improvement, what opportunities might exist and what areas they view as out of school control and impeding progress.

A strategic planning team will work to build an outline for a plan and another community forum is planned for the spring of 2025. The team of 14 includes Hallen, Allen, representatives from each of Waterville’s four schools and school departments, as well as school alumni, parents of students, including those new to the school system, faculty, staff and a representative from Mid-Maine Technical Center. The team, which also includes a city councilor and school board member, meets once a month.

Waterville schools, according to Hallen, serve more than 1,600 students in kindergarten through grade 12; about 200 children in Educare, an early childhood education program; about 300 students from other communities enrolled at Mid-Maine Technical Center; and about 150 students in adult education.