Vantage Point: A new school year, a new focus on success
By:
CSBA President Martha Fluor
Published: September 1, 2011
As we begin a new school year with the hopes and dreams of 6 million California students resting on our shoulders, it sometimes seems that the number of challenges facing governance teams and individual board members grows almost daily. You hardly need me to recite a litany of those challenges, but they begin with Assembly Bill 114, the fiscally reckless legislation that essentially asks school boards to pretend there’s no possibility of midyear budget cuts when we all know they’re a distinct possibility.
I could also talk about the $9.4 billion in deferrals that schools are facing as a result of the 2011-12 state budget agreement (that’s on top of the billions in deferrals already inflicted upon schools in recent years), or the ongoing disconnect between how Americans view their schools and their school boards. This year’s Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll shows the percentage of A and B grades poll participants give to teachers and principals has risen since 1984—but dropped for school boards. We could have a vigorous debate about the reasons why, but one would be hard-pressed to call it good news.
But that’s not really the point of this column. It does us no good to complain. Instead, we need to do a better job of talking about our successes. Because even in the midst of various crises (that were not of our own making), there are a lot of good things happening in our schools. We need to talk more about those good things—yes, even going so far as to take credit for them, particularly when they result from good and positive thinking from our school boards.
As I shared with CSBA’s membership upon becoming president, one of my goals this year is to recognize our members for their good work, their achievements and their success. So I am pleased to let you know that very soon, a new column will be appearing periodically in this newsletter and in California Schools, our quarterly magazine, where we do exactly that. More details are forthcoming from Executive Director Vernon M. Billy in California Schools’ Fall issue. But in the meantime, please be thinking about individuals and governance teams who deserve recognition for the successes they’ve achieved while demonstrating courage and resolve in the face of adversity.
It has long been a strategic priority of CSBA to provide education to our communities about public schools and school board leadership—to be proactive in generating public confidence in school boards as district leaders. It is my hope that this new column will be one small step toward achieving that goal. But there is much more that we can, and must, do.