Serving on a local board of education involves commitment, focus, and accountability. From hiring the superintendent to being advocates for public education to setting policy to being stewards of the budget, local boards have tremendous responsibility. Our stakeholders expect the absolute best for our customers, our children. So, along with these roles and responsibilities of ...
Last February, Dr. Claire Miller, shared the story of how her district, Barrow County School System, prepared for District Accreditation. This blog is an attempt to document the steps she outlined in her presentation which I think will be very useful for other school districts who have accreditation work looming! Her school district used eBOARD*’s ...
As a former school board member of ten years in Georgia, I was required to complete 12 hours of training during my first year of service and six hours each year thereafter. The training requirements have now changed; however, school board members must still complete training courses so that they are in compliance with this ...
The eBOARDsolutions 2012 User Conference was held in late February in Atlanta, Georgia. Almost 200 eBOARD users gathered for a day of learning with and from their colleagues about how to take full advantage of the web-based suite of software tools that they have implemented for managing and aligning the work of their school districts. ...
In May 2011, tornadoes ripped through Joplin, Missouri. A community was destroyed. The hub of that community is the local public school system. The administrative building and many of their schools were leveled. Seven lives were lost within the Joplin school family. But, nothing stops the people of Joplin. Superintendent C.J. Huff announced within days ...
Is your school board’s work in the weeds or are you looking from a global perspective? It’s so easy to get off track. For boards of education, it is imperative that the board simply follow the system-wide strategic plan with that plan driving the monthly meetings of the board. So why do boards end up ...
Local school boards meet all around this country in governing our nation’s public schools. Who makes the agenda? In my home state of Georgia, the superintendent and board chair have the responsibility of creating the monthly agenda; each member of the board can additionally request that an item be placed on the agenda. What’s put ...
Is your head in the clouds? It should be. If you are a school administrator or a board member, you may have never heard or thought about “cloud” technology. I mentioned the word the other day in an e-mail and was surprised to hear back that it meant nothing to the recipients. I would respond ...
The Center for Digital Education held nine conferences this spring with a theme “Connecting the Dots” where participants not only heard from experts in the field of demographics but also engaged in roundtable discussion on relevant topics for public education. The conversations at the event in Georgia included professional development strategies for educators, technology planning ...
Planning for accreditation can be an incredibly busy time for any district. Our plates are all full, as the tired saying reminds us, but we needed to collaborate on this extremely important sign and seal of our district work. And as with all things in a school district, working with adults is an excellent opportunity ...
If you’re like me, you’ve attended your fair share of meetings (staff meetings, board meetings, cabinet meetings…you name it.) Most of these meetings have had an agenda but many agendas were just SKELETONS, or basic outlines of the topics that will be presented, discussed or acted upon. So as we’ve had access to technology tools, ...
At the eBOARDsolutions User Conference in March 2011, I co-presented with Dr. Valery Hall of the Forsyth County Public Schools in Georgia. In her role of assisting both the superintendent and the board of education, Valery is integrally involved in preparing the agendas for their board’s meetings. Thus, our session involved agenda preparation and effective ...
Over the past two years, I have had the privilege and good fortune to be a part of what I believe to be one of the greatest movements in Georgia history to transform public education. In 2009, the Georgia School Boards Association and the Georgia School Superintendents Association embarked on a journey to bring together ...
Now that doing more with less is the new norm, how do you market and promote your school district and successful programs? Maybe it’s time for a brainstorming session with your school public relations professional. Don’t know where to start? I’ll kick the conversation off with these five freebies: Create desktop wallpaper and screensavers for ...
Over the last two decades I’ve worked with school systems (both administrators and teachers) helping them to more effectively use technology. In most of these cases, this has been in the service of a technology company such as Apple, Promethean or eBOARDsolutions. According to this Edupotia article “Shaping Tech for the Classroom” by Mark Prensky ...
As legislative sessions have begun all around the country, school board members are advocating for their local public schools. Grassroots efforts are the heart of this kind of advocacy. School board members are the voice of their communities. How do they share their message with their legislators? Consider hosting a local bus tour of your ...
Alabama Association of School Boards President Florence Bellamy has advocated for education on the local, state and national scene. She knows first-hand that an educated populace is an issue elected officials can rally around. She advises education leaders to keep that in mind when they are advocating. “We must set aside personal and political differences ...
Successful school districts take accountability seriously and strive to cultivate a culture that values continuous improvement. School boards can model their commitment to these ideas by engaging in regular self-evaluation, in addition to completing timely evaluations of their superintendent. With the focus on technology and data collection it is easy to lose sight of the ...
With elections across the country at the end of 2010, there has been a good bit of turnover with locally elected officials. Simply put, 2010 was not the year for incumbents. In the world of public service, there are many new school board members beginning terms this month. How is a change in a school ...
Let’s face it. Not all board members are tech savvy. But more and more, it is so important that leadership can use technology to access important information (such as online meeting agendas, policies as well as news, registering for conferences…the list is endless). But what about the board members who’ve been led to the water ...