October 18th Az School Board Association County Meeting

Attending the County meeting is always a chance to learn more about how to be a better Board Member.   This year’s meeting was hosted by Superintendent Ron Aguallo of Valley Union High School.  Dinner was preceded by a performance of Valley Union band and choir.  I was joined by our President, Jeff Crandall and Superintendent, Karl Uterhardt.

As we learned at Board Orientations many months ago, celebrating achievements is a step in the process of continuous improvement; School Board Members from Cochise County were acknowledged for the time and effort they devote to attending the Conferences and Workshops sponsored by the Az School Board Association.  Our entire School Board received a certificate for attending the New Member Board Orientation last December. Our President, Jeff Crandall, who has been a member of the School Board for three years, received two plaques for his continuing education units.

We received a State Budget updated and learned of the budget shortfalls estimated in FY 2013 and 2014.  When the one cent sales tax is eliminated in FY2014, there will be an estimated billion dollar loss.  The Total FY 2012 General Fund budget is only $8.3 billion. Total FY 2010 SFB and Dept of Education appropriation is $3.6 billion. Many more figures were shared, but I will not bore you with all the details.

There was also more information distributed about the A-F School Accountability System. Hearing the explanation of the scoring composite over and over helps firm my understanding of the process.  I see the benefits of the new scoring, because the emphasis isn’t entirely about the AIMS scores.  Students’ growth is a larger portion with the growth of 25% of the lowest performing students being counted twice.  This shows that legislature is emphasizing the need to work with the students in whom most people lose faith.  I wonder how this scoring will hurt districts whose students are at the top of their game.  Yes, we still expect the growth, but can the growth be as large for those students.   Districts were given time to discuss how they will get the message out about the scores.  Superintendent Uterhardt mentioned the interview he gave to Dana Cole of the Sierra Vista Paper and President Crandall said the article was in the Sunday paper, I was a bit behind in reading the paper, but will be sure to read that article soon.  I did request Karl to reach out to the three Tombstone papers to get the message there, as well. 

Derek Peterson joined us for another presentation of those with whome we need to work to provide for our students. The activity at this meeting was represented with a tarp.  One side (grey) represented students in need and the other side (blue) represented students with webs of support.  With a group of us on the grey side of the tarp and without getting off, they had to turn the tarp over to the blue side.  Derek asked us those who watched to describe the skill set needed to make this happen.   We noted who they had to work together, communicate, lean on one another for support, and think outside of the box.