School Board Meeting
I watched a video of a local School Board meeting from July
17th. I printed a copy of the
agenda prior to viewing the meeting and had an idea of the business being
conducted. I have some experience with
this district and with the new leadership change I watched with curiosity to
see if there would be changes from what I knew to be their practice.
The agenda was set up with the usual items and the structure
of the meeting looked to be a familiar format.
As I watched the meeting unfold it was apparent that policy governance
was the model being used. As with past
boards in this district the citizen comments were placed at the beginning and
the end of the meeting. The interesting
part of the citizen’s comments portion that began the meeting was the adherence
to the time limit. In this meeting there was a group from the community and the
school staff that were questioning a recent issue that had occurred at the High
School. A former administrator had
written a letter that he wanted to read but the time would not permit him to finish
the entire letter. One member of the
community continued the reading of the letter with the time allotted to them
and finished the statement being made.
It was apparent that the group was present to address that issue and all
were looking for answers.
Having experience with this district, and from our class
discussions I have found that I am more inclined to believe a Superintendent
needs to have a pulse of the community they are working with and an
understanding of the values present. In
this meeting the Superintendent allowed the comments portion to proceed and
then moved the board into the meeting portion of the agenda. As per board policy no comments were made
with the presented issue and the members of the audience were given a thank you
for their concerns and the meeting moved on. I believe that I will move the public comment
portion of the meeting to the end of the meeting. As we discussed in class there may be answers
to the issue during the meeting.
The steps I would take as Superintendent are:
1.
Engage the Board in Professional Develop through
AWSA or another organization.
2.
Provide for an outside organization to
watch/attend a board meeting. Solicit
feedback for the board as well as myself as to our process.
3.
Develop our process so that we are all on the
same page with meeting goals, conduct and expectations.
Ouch! Sometimes sticking this strictly to an agenda and time limits turns community members off. This can lead to a terrible impression of the district and the board as ultimately, everything reflects on the district and its leadership. Sounds like a hot topic. Our board is more open to listening to public comment and has ended discussions if they become long. However, to continue to develop the community representation and commitment to the district, they do allow all who wish to speak during open comment to do so and they respond always in thanks for sharing to the speaker and sometimes by engaging in a bit of conversation to gather clarification.
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