School governance leaders to advocate on behalf of California’s students during CSBA’s Legislative Action Conference

 SACRAMENTO – The California School Boards Association will host its Legislative Action Conference on May 20-21, in Sacramento. Among the slate of speakers during the two-day event is Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, who will address conference attendees at an 8:30 a.m. breakfast on Monday, May 21, at the Sacramento Convention Center.

Other speakers include:

Sunday luncheon speaker (1:00-2:30 p.m., at the Hyatt Regency)

• Scott Hill, Undersecretary, Office of the Secretary of Education Sunday dinner speaker (7:00-8:30 p.m., at the Hyatt Regency)

• Joel Blackwell, author of Empowering School Leaders: Personal Political Power for School Board Members and Administrators

A general session, issue sessions and legislative strategy sessions are scheduled on Sunday to prepare school governance leaders for a full day of lobbying the next day. Lobbying will take place from 10:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. at the State Capitol on Monday, May 21. The four key issues that
CSBA will be advocating include K-12 funding; county intervention; California High School Exit Exam Reform; and No Child Left Behind.

“CSBA has a rich tradition of advocacy on behalf of California’s schoolchildren,” said Dr. Kathy Kinley, president of CSBA and a member of the Chaffey Joint Union High School District board. “Our Legislative Action Conference is a powerful way of perpetuating this tradition and advancing
public education issues with our state legislators.”

School governance teams from across California, including board members, superintendents and other district/county office staff, will participate in CSBA’s Legislative Action Conference 2007.