So, after spending the week in Boise (Tuesday-Friday. Monday night I was here at a school board meeting) I can say that we are not the only district facing the issues we do. We are in good company. As a state all board expressed concerns. The districts are all held to certain constraints. A trustee is someone who (during a board meeting) has an opportunity to help mold their district through policy. The only employee directly hired by the board is the Superintendent though most do hire their admin staff. From there boards create the policy that staff will use as a guide in the day to day operations. How it is implemented is up to the Superintendent and staff. Being a board member has no power and pays zero dollars and zero cents. It simply means you are a voice for a group of people as to what the policy of a district should be. It is the only elected position that is like that. It is an elected position though meaning that you are asking to be the voice of those in your zone. Once elected you are the voice for all of them not just those that voted for you. Trustees are not elected to hire and fire. They are elected to create policy. That policy is implemented by a superintendent and then followed by staff. When the policy is not followed it is important to follow the chain of command because the board becomes the hearing committee when an issue arises and has gone through the chain without a satisfactory outcome. Our district is trying to connect more with its community so we can have the correct information as to our patrons concerns when creating or modifying policy. We have created an executive council to increase communication between the board, the Superintendent and the staff. We have a Parent Advisory Committee so we can address concerns and get community feedback. We have invited the paper and online news source to be a part of our meetings. We have invited Boundarycountylive to broadcast the meetings. We are holding community forums to get feedback from our community. (Next one is December 4th at the District Office. 6:15pm) We are volunteers but are dedicated to getting information and give up a lot of time to help our community. The single biggest complaint at the state level is on funding. With so many districts having to ask their community to help fund education the burden to educate Idahos children has become unbalanced. The state funds (according to Governor Otter) about 73 percent of what it costs for public schools. He says that is about the best the state can do to meet its constitutional mandate to fund a uniform public public school system. (This is from the debates and taken from idahoednews.org/news/otter-balukoff-spar-on-education-and-the-budget/#.VGd7U6Y76nN and discussed this week) If Idaho only pays 73% of what the state needs to educate its students what does that do for local boards and Trustees. Not a lot thats good. The option available currently is levy funding. That puts the burden on one part of the community. While the burden is not a large amount it is still not a fair system. We try in this county to keep that burden low but at what cost to our students. Currently it goes off of the value of your property (the formula looks like: property value-homeowners exemption (half of the home value up to a maximum of 89,580 exemption equals taxable value of your home. Multiple that by the Levy Rate of 0.002770518 to find your rate. As an example. A 100,000 dollar home under the current levy. 100,000 - 50,000(homeowners exemption) = taxable property of 50,000. 50,000x0.002770518 equals 138.5259. 100,000 -50,000 ---------- 50,000 50,000 X 0.002770518 ------------------ 138.5259 Round up. 139.00\12=11.59 This means that person contributes about $11.59 to schools) just to help with understanding our problems here. Its not a great system. Its what we have and why the state needs to fully fund. Anyway, I want everyone to know that the Trustees are going to keep asking questions. We are going to keep working to create good policy. We are not going to micro manage. We are going to follow the law. We are passionate about helping our kids and our communities. We are the voice for more than just one or two people but instead for an entire zone. To have transparency and collaboration requires one step that Boundary County needs to keep working towards, participation. For the system to work peoples voices must be heard. Now I can say with certainty they are not being silenced but by board meeting attendance and feedback I can also say I wish more voices would give their input. To stomp this rambling I just want to recap. We are not the only district experiencing these issues. We are trying to help. Trustees are Elected Volunteers. We ask to sit at the table but we are you voice and at the table we are one of five zones. It is the job of a trustee to create policy not to micro manage. That was the biggest lesson of my term and the lesson confirmed this week. Thank you Boundary County for the opportunity to volunteer!
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:47:58 +0000