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My View of Our Duties
What are the things on which I think we should focus during the next four years?
Our most important duty
From recent past events, with the leaving of the HS principal, HS basketball coach, AC superintendent, and others (ous school board doesn't hire any of those positions by the way), we should all have a heightened awareness of the fact that for various reasons sometimes people leave their jobs.
All of us should be aware that during the next four years the most important thing that we might do is select and hire a new superintendent. The average stay for a superintendent in Oak Ridge is about 5 years, and that number is skewed by Bob Smallridge’s 20-year tenure. Otherwise, it’s less than four years. Our superintendent has been here 7 years -- getting ready to start his eighth. Statistics alone should make us all a bit more alert. If he were to leave during the next four years, we need to be ready to move deliberately and reasonably quickly. Selecting a superintendent is the most important duty that the school board has.
Additionally, The Tennessee School Boards Association also makes it clear that our three main foci are: policy, planning and promotion.
We are great at promotion. I’ll leave that alone.
We are a policy making body. We should review our policies a lot more than we do. Policies written years ago may or may not be applicable now. I think that all of us need to push for an annual systematic policy review –policies having to do with staff residency, out-of-country trips, schedule alterations (especially with the new curriculum), our alternative school, and student evaluation all come to mind.
We also need to do a better job at planning. We are supposed to have a current five-year plan. I will be gentle here and say that I am not aware that we have one. I think that all of us should push to get this task done.
Each of us has a certain educational philosophy.
Regardless of our personal educational philosphies and regardless of how much we may or may not disagree with NCLB (No Child Left Behind) and new federal and state standards, they are realities and we will have to comply. I just hope that we have some choices in how we comply. We will have to deal with these issues.
These are, of course, many more items that occupy our time and energy.
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Donato (Dan) DiGregorio