Members of the community will have their chance to voice their opinions and make recommendations about things they would like to see changed with the Vicksburg Warren School District during three community listening sessions.

The sessions will be held Tuesday, at Vicksburg Junior High, Thursday,  at Vicksburg High and Tuesday, Oct. 3, at Warren Central High School. All three sessions will take place from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

“There are a lot of people that have a lot of history here that may not have kids in the district, but they still view it as their schools,” Superintendent Chad Shealy said. “We know the schools play a large role in our community and I want to know what they think.”

The community listening sessions are being held as part of a feasibility study being done for the Board of Trustees by Bailey Education Group. The first stage of the study was to do a full facility assessment across the district and look at enrollment and population data.

The community listening sessions will led by Gary Bailey from Bailey Education and will be the community’s opportunity to offer input before final results from the study are presented.

“I really care what they think and I really want them to have the opportunity to have a voice in what is going on,” Shealy said.

“We can have parent meetings and I think our parents show up, but we really want a good sample of Vicksburg there.”

Shealy said some of the popular topics he hears discussed when out in the community is whether they need two high schools, questions about sports, the state of the buildings and the structure of the district.

The three sessions will be the community’s opportunity to have its opinion heard on those matters and more.

“I am not a centralized approval kind of guy,” Shealy said. “I don’t say this is how it is going to be and this is the outcome and I’m going to drive the process to get the outcome I want. Legitimately, when I say I want to know that is what this is. It is a listening opportunity for us to gather information to give to our board so they can be more powerful with the decisions they are making in the long-term.”

Shealy said it was important to have someone like Bailey lead these types of meetings because he is an unbiased outsider that will take the input from the community and what was learned through the facilities assessment to put together a cohesive plan.

“I want to be there to hear, but I don’t want to be there to guide,” Shealy said.

“Gary is going to facilitate the conversation with the community and put an open, nonbiased cast net out. I wanted to hear, but I didn’t want to influence that. I plan to be at all the meetings. I will be there as a participant, not one that is driving it.”

The sessions are open to all members of the community, not just those that work for VWSD or have a child enrolled in a VWSD school.