Delegates maintain CSBA’s focus
Published: January 3, 2012
CSBA’s Delegate Assembly—the association’s primary policymaking body—gathered in San Diego Nov. 30-Dec. 1, moving purposefully through an issue-rich agenda that included reports on CSBA’s fiscal health and future direction and analyses of policy, legal and legislative forecasts for 2012.
Composed of 270 delegates selected within CSBA’s 21 geographic regions, the Delegate Assembly elects officers, revises and approves the association’s Policy Platform, and ensures that CSBA continues to represent the interests of school board members and the children those boards serve. The delegates also provide guidance to direct the association’s Board of Directors and Executive Committee.
100 mph to ‘light speed’
CSBA Executive Director Vernon Billy delivered an overview of what’s happened during the “amazingly productive six months” since he first addressed the Delegate Assembly at its semiannual meeting in Sacramento last May.
Although he works quickly, moving at about “a hundred miles an hour,” Billy said he found himself at times trying to keep up with Martha Fluor, CSBA’s president for the past year. Fluor, Billy said, “moves at light speed” and seems to possess an inexhaustible source of energy.
Billy told delegates he’s certain that he and Fluor’s successor, Jill Wynns, will enjoy a similarly effective working relationship—just as they did a number of years ago when Billy served in the superintendent’s cabinet at the San Francisco Unified School District, where Wynns is a trustee.
Both Wynns and Billy spoke enthusiastically during the assembly about CSBA’s groundbreaking legal challenges to the state’s school finance system: Robles-Wong v. California, filed in May 2010, and litigation filed in September 2011 to overturn the current state budget’s raid on Proposition 98’s school funding guarantee. Both cases are working their way through the legal process, and CSBA’s president and its executive director both promised to keep up the pressure.
“We’ll keep going back to court again and again and again and again until the state gets it,” Billy vowed.
He also updated delegates on his plans for “changing and challenging conventional practices” at CSBA. His blueprint for the future was recently adopted by the association’s Board of Directors and is now being fleshed out by staff for implementation. One thing won’t change, however, Billy said: “We need to stay focused on our mission and our vision.”
Billy said he wants CSBA to take a more active role in shaping public opinion on education and leading policy and legislative advocacy debates. His blueprint calls for strengthening CSBA’s policy and political influence; enhancing CSBA’s communications efforts; and building a more flexible and “nimble” organization that can respond quickly to the latest political and policy developments. Billy also noted that during his first six months the fiscal health of the association has been strengthened.
Some dramatic changes are already well under way. Art Schmitt, CSBA’s chief financial officer, reported that the association is leaner than it was two years ago and has reduced its work force from 118 employees to the current 86. The association now has its first-ever multiyear budget, a comprehensive revenue and spending plan retooled to adapt to changing conditions.
Schmidt also projected that CSBA will save $100,000 a year—money that now goes to rent office space to supplement the association’s cramped West Sacramento headquarters—by consolidating operations in a single office building across the street from the association’s existing building. Schmitt noted that the latest annual financial audit once again found no deficiencies and did not recommend any corrective actions.
Profile in Courage
The Delegate Assembly’s meeting wasn’t all policy and spread sheets.
Guest speaker Marc Johnson, named the country’s top superintendent for 2011 by the American Association of School Administrators for his work as superintendent of the Sanger Unified School District, wove an inspirational story of educational transformation that demonstrated why school board leadership can be so rewarding—despite all the hard work and frustrations that go along with the job.
The improvements in his rural Fresno County district have been so dramatic, with all the district’s once-struggling schools now meeting or exceeding their academic targets, that CSBA featured Sanger in the association’s first “Profile in Courage,” a new department in CSBA’s California Schools magazine that debuted in the Winter 2011 issue. District school board members set the targets, Johnson said, and the district’s staff carries out the board’s vision.
Easy link: