So, You Want to Run for the School Board?
Five Questions for School Board Candidates
December 21, 2022
You can think of this as part 2 of my last article: It’s Time to Focus on District Leadership, because once again, I’m going to try and make the point that there should be a obvious separation of duties, a separation we haven’t always had in Decatur, between the Superintendent of Schools and the School Board. In my last article I listed five questions that Duane and I had for our Superintendent, and in this article I’m looking at the important job of a school board member to: stay focused on the big picture and monitor the performance of the Superintendent. As a warmup, let’s start with a few scenarios, and discuss if and how a board member should involve themselves:
Nearly everything brought up in the public forum session of the biweekly board meeting should not be considered by the school board. While I’m not opposed to these rant sessions, (it’s really the only time the community can ensure their gripes are heard) almost everything mentioned should be dealt with, or ignored where appropriate, by the school principals, and occasionally by the district administration, but almost never by school board.
The Wall Street Journal had a piece on December 16 about how conservatives around the country are taking over school boards, “vowing to change what students learn about race, sex, and gender… replacing superintendents and overhauling policies.” While we disagree with some of what this moblike behavior is accomplishing, replacing superintendents (even for wrong reasons) falls within the purview of what a board should do when a district moves away from what the community wants or expects from their schools.
While we disagreed with our board’s decision to pursue building a new school (we felt CARES money should have been spent to help actual learning) we didn’t have a problem with the board taking up the issue. This large of an expenditure falls under the “broad vision” or perhaps “district purpose” areas of board responsibilities. But, and I digress here, we did have a big problem with the silence of the Superintendent and District CFO on the issue. They are the professionals who should have endorsed or objected to the plan.
Those are simple examples to set the tone of what we want to ask our prospective new board members. After reviewing the answers to the following questions, Duane and I are going to endorse the candidates we feel will best represent the community, with a heavy focus on if the candidate:
Understands the role of a school board member, and
Aligns with our views on the important issues our school board will face in the next year.
So, we came up with five questions we want to ask each of our eight candidates (we’ll email them separately to ensure they have an opportunity to answer). Most of the phrasing of our questions are what an attorney might call “leading”, so if they disagree with the entire premise of a question, they should feel free to tell us why we’re wrong!
While oversight of the Superintendent is one of your primary roles, past boards have micromanaged our Superintendent, even having them report on every meeting attended, daily schedule, etc. How do you perceive your role of managing the most important employee of District 61?
Nearly a third of district funding comes from the state of Illinois - based on the number of students in the district, and with a declining enrollment that revenue will likely be drastically reduced. Another large block of funding comes from the city, which also has a generally declining population. And this is occurring in a time of large inflation where costs continue to increase dramatically. When the CARES money funding cliff arrives in January of 2024, our district, along with many districts around the country, will face major funding issues. While this problem will fall squarely with the Sup and the District CFO, your job as a board member will be to make sure that we are prepared to face this issue and to make sure it’s dealt with. Are you prepared to oversee this challenge, and what will you be looking for in future budget proposals – school closures, outsourcing district departments, reduce admin, etc.?
Another huge challenge we have in our district is declining test scores. In many ways solutions to this issue should be reflected in a board members broad philosophical vision of learning. What are your thoughts on addressing this issue, and please mention which, if any, of the following solutions you think might help increase test scores?
New school buildings,
A transition to more homogeneous learning opportunities in the elementary schools,
Consolidating High Schools,
And anything else you might have in mind.
We’re anxious to hear our Superintendents feelings on cell phones in schools, but one could make an argument that the use of cell phones by students in the classroom (during instruction time) falls under the category of the “purpose” of our school system. At the bare minimum, a board-backed proposal would go a long way in showing the district leadership team that the community is behind a particular course of action. What are your thoughts on cell phone use in the schools? And specifically, if it were to come to a vote – would you vote for some type of cell phone ban in classrooms?
Should we allocate more money from the budget (at least while we have CARES money we can use) toward sending staff to job fairs, colleges, etc. to look for qualified teachers? Do you think this issue is getting enough attention? Should it, for example, be a regular agenda item in the biweekly board meeting, and/or should it be included in your evaluation of the job the Superintendent is doing?
We look forward to hearing your answers!
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