During the Appleton Area School District board of Education meeting on 09/27/2021 Board member Jim Bowman gave a report on a conference he had recently attended.
The title of the conference was “Wisdom Sharing” and it was put on by the Aspen Group International, which is the company that is guiding the Board of Education in their implementation of Coherent Governance. Per Jim Bowman, Aspen brought together 27 people from 11 school district and gave those individuals an opportunity to share their thoughts. The format was participant discussion with very little formal presentation. Aspen would create a topic, talk about it for around 1 minute, then open it up for us.
Jim stated, “It was quite productive,” and he reported on 8 topics he thought were relevant to the AASD Board of Education.
1. Mask Mandates: most people in the conference group were reluctant for their boards to take visible involvement in the decision on masking. Jim disagreed and endorsed the AASD Board’s vote on masking. He said there was quite a discussion on that.
2. Focusing on Students: Most boards felt that their attention to students was inadequate. One district was compiling data on what happens to students after they graduate and it sounded like this data would help them assess student results.
3. Student Representatives on Boards: One discussion participant believed boards needed to get student representatives’ input on real issues and no limit them to things such as a report on the prom. Three student representatives spoke at the conference.
One said she looked for a calm, collected demeanor from Board members in spite of the criticism coming from the public and wanted to see how Board members come together to reach decisions. The district she was a part of planned to make a video on the role of students on a school board which will be posted on Aspen’s website.
Another student representative was critical and said that at times she sits in the Board meetings and feels she serves no purpose and could be doing homework instead.
The third said student representatives were representing students and putting their opinions out there which takes courage. Students are the ones affected by Board decisions so that student appreciated being on the Board.
Jim noted that student reps usually leave the board meetings around 8 or 9 pm, and none of them had voting rights but their input was requested. One of the students felt that her teachers were now reluctant to open up with her in class because she might tell the Board.
4. Quality Indicators: This was one of the few presentations that were given. The presenter was Ginger Hopkins. It went “beyond academic measurements” and looked intriguing to Jim. Ms. Hopkins suggested “going beyond state level measurement” and discussed “surveys that measure social and economic and emotional involvement.” She plans workshops on this topic for clients. “There’s a major need for explanations of measurement in terms that are helpful to Board members.”
5. Reporting Data To Board Members: Per Jim, Sun Prairie records superintendent and administrator presentations in advance and makes them available on the Friday prior to Monday board meetings. Board members then watch these presentations over the weekend which takes about 2 hours. The Board then discusses them on Monday. The Board president at Sun Prairie thought this approach allowed more time for good questioning in Board meetings, but no other district follows this approach and Jim stated he didn’t sense a lot of interest in it. [Honestly, it seems like a good idea that would provide some flexibility in reviewing meeting materials and potentially cut down on the length of Board meetings. And making the information available ahead of time also seems like it would be a good way to improve communication with the public and make things more accessible in a timely manner.]
6. The Role Of Coherent Governance: Jim stated there were several perspectives on this and some disagreement among the group. Some participants felt that implementing Coherent Governance effectively was an important objective whereas “others, including me, put more emphasis on student learning as the objective. Governance is seen as a structure to get you to that result.”
7. Onboarding: Jim stated, “If you have new Board members on your board, you need to have discussions with them–privately. Talk with them about community special interest groups and how you see them.” [I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for whatever private onboarding conversations the AASD Board of Education held.]
8. Linkage To The Community: He said this came up again and again, and there was wide support for explaining governance to the community “but it’s unclear if the community is interested outside of a hot button issue. Residents mostly don’t care what the governance model is until they have a complaint.” One district created a “thought-leaders” group which they were pleased with; they also created monthly coffee chats with community members which the community members really appreciated. “They believe that to include marginalized communities–and this one district has a lot of them–that you have to go to them where they feel comfortable. Community members are not interested in governance; they are interested in children achieving success after graduation, so there’s an opportunity to engage them over success then you can slip in governance as a way to get there.”
View full Board of Education video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_idRSX5iaM
View full meeting details here: http://go.boarddocs.com/wi/aasd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=C6WNTX613D8F
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