By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The St. Joseph Imagine 2040 plan was designed to help improve the community, and a big focus of it right now is on improving education in St. Joseph.
Director of the St. Joseph Community Alliance Tama Wagner says the 2040 plan was passed in 2018, but actually implementing the plan, is an ongoing process.
"But it's not prescriptive, it doesn't say if you do A, B, and C, then this is miraculously fixed," Wagner tells Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. "And anybody who has done any sort of community improvement work knows it's a process."
Wagner says she thinks they will always be in the implementation phase, but the alliance recognizes the successes.
Wagner says a lot of the plans investing in people is how to improve the community to be more livable, and a lot of that focus right now is on education.
"I think we all know our school district faces some challenges, and so one of the calls in the 2040 plan is to create a community that values and invests in education," Wagner says.
Wagner says one big way they are doing that is by supporting the Vision Forward community engagement meetings held by the St. Joseph School District.
Vision Forward held its first meeting last month, and will hold the second of four meetings later this month at Word of Life Church.
But Wagner is aware that improving the school system presents a lot of challenges.
"Here are the challenges that we face, currently St. Joseph ranks 377th out of 516 public schools in the state of Missouri," Wagner says. "Are you satisfied with that, do you want that to get better, if you want that to get better than what should we do, and that's all this is about," Wagner explains.