LAKEWOOD — As the Lakewood School District gears up for the start of school, its board met Aug. 11 not only to map out some goals for the coming year, but also to plan an upcoming state of the district address.

“We hadn’t really done a state of the district address in a formalized way before,” Lakewood superintendent Michael Mack said. “I thought we could model it after the State of the Union and similar addresses, like what [superintendent] Kris McDuffy does for Arlington.”

The board decided the state of the district would cover five points: Student achievement, financial health, development of facilities, an update on technology, and a look at the district’s climate and culture. The construction of the new high school will be addressed separately.

“We came up with a basic framework for the address, because we want to be held a little more accountable to do our best as a district,” said Mack, who promised opportunities for public comment following the address.

Mack anticipates the first state of the district will be delivered in late January or early February of 2015, to allow the results of state testing to be incorporated into the address.

“Having that data will give us the ability to put a new plan together,” Mack said. “Our most recent academic vision statement is four years old.”

In the meantime, Mack explained the district will focus on third-grade reading, middle school reading and math, and Algebra in middle and high school in the coming school year.

“We’ll also be working on our graduation rate, obviously,” Mack said. “As we go forward, we’ll be taking an honest look at our curriculum, to see which areas students are actually participating in, and what we might have held onto too long. We know we’re doing good things here, but we can always do better.”