Category: School Board
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Going Beyond the Core
Almost from the start of my term on the Board, I have struggled with how to understand value and affordability metrics in education. As an engineer, I’ve been taught to analyze any system for its structure of performance, feedback, and control. This is the essence of any accountability system. Of…
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Interesting, Happy Times
This recent summary of the challenges facing school boards everywhere is indicative of the concerns I feel as well. If you are interested enough to follow this blog, then I encourage you to review the article and note just how many complicated and conflicting issues there are surrounding the actions…
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Summer Fun for Board Members
Summer fun for a school board member is clearly different from the regular kind. Sure we like to take vacations, travel, spend time with our families, you name it. We do that, too, but one other task is thinking about the coming year or years and what kind of strategic…
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Ownership and Local Coalitions…or Whence the School Board (Part II)
Continuing from where I left off, I read many articles these days about the impending demise of school boards. Uniformly, the authors lament the increasing amount of state and federal legislation that is imposing direction onto school districts through a systematic linking of funding to specific actions by boards and district administrations. The federal…
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Discussing #Transparency…Transparently
I keep coming up against this issue in learning this new position, so I’m going to open the can of worms a crack and see what happens. I’m not even sure this is possible, but let’s try to discuss transparency…transparently. Sunshine and Open Records laws set a standard, but by…
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Potential Primary Process Change…Survey Results
As near as I can tell, 14 folks participated in my recent survey on the primary process. While certainly not a scientific sampling, here are the results: It was nice, but not really surprising, that visitors were almost all aware of the issue. I suspect the general population is less…
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Overcoming a Weakness…Engaging with Our Community
One possible benefit of having been appointed is not having to campaign for my position on the school board, but in fact, I consider this a weakness. While campaigning can be tiresome and time-consuming, I feel a real loss for not having had the opportunity to meet more members of…
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Standards…Not Just for Academics
I want to echo here my comments this evening regarding the passage by our Board of a resolution adopting the Pennsylvania School Board Association’s Standards for Effective School Governance. I am proud to be on the board and to have the chance to vote, for the first time, in favor…
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Act I Exceptions…Shared Knowledge
I knew it would happen. I’ve left some information out of my previous discussion on Act I. Specifically, there are exceptions to the rule (or why else would it be a rule, right?). Here’s what I believe I know. (And please don’t shoot me if I’m still wrong on some…
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Getting Involved…Through Committees
I was lucky. I knew this before I was appointed to the school board, but still there are many who don’t know, so I’m going to do my best to help remedy things based on what I know and have learned. In Cheltenham, deliberation and discussion largely happens in our…
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