Council School District Hosts Workshop
On Monday, February 10th, the Council School District hosted a community workshop at the elementary school called “Communicating as Leaders.” The workshop was put on by the Idaho School Board Association and was free for the community to attend, and indeed, was well attended, mostly by parents and school staff.
Recently there had been some strife between parents, school staff and administrators, and the school board. Board chair, Steve Ryals, contacted the Idaho School Board Association, who thought that this training might be a good way to start to heal some of the division and strengthen communication within the community. They were able to bring the training to the community free of charge through a grant. The goal of the workshop was to “Strengthen school board member leadership skills to provide effective communication within the board room and with the community.” Dr. Phil Gore, Chief Learning Officer for the ISBA, led the workshop.
Dr. Gore started out the workshop by having everyone in the room write down their hopes and concerns for the school district on a sticky note and place them on a board. Some common themes started to emerge from the concerns, particularly around safety, lack of trust, and communication. Dr. Gore Listened as some of the attendees elaborated on what they had written down and said it was important to find out what the community wants. He spoke for a while about focused governance and what the goals of the school district should be. The attendees broke into small groups to discuss topics a couple of times and also held several more brainstorming sessions.
Dr. Gore spoke about communication, building trust, and what to do when trust is broken. Ultimately, he said, the school board has to represent the community, but he also wanted to clearly define the powers that the school board did and did not have, and what sort of things were appropriate concerns to bring to the board. He talked to the community about what the board could and could not legally talk about as well. For example, if it is not on the agenda for that meeting, the board cannot talk about it during the meeting. If it is about specific students or personnel, the board cannot talk about it at a board meeting. The Council School District Board meets the third Tuesday of the month, and the agenda is finalized the Tuesday before the meeting. If someone wants to get on the agenda or submit public comment, it needs to be brought forward by the second Tuesday of the month.
Dr. Gore recommended some ways that the school board could improve communication with the community. Council School District Superintendent, Pat Griffin, said that they are in the early days of developing a parent advisory committee and that he has really appreciated the recent parent community meetings that have been happening. Dr. Gore said he thought he heard the suggestion from the workshop participants that the board and superintendent do something like this periodically, where the community can come and share comments and concerns. He thought this would be a good way for the board to get a pulse of the community.
Overall, it seemed to be a good workshop, and will hopefully go a long way towards healing some of the division between different members of the school community and help facilitate more open communications. As the instructor, Dr. Gore said during the workshop, and everyone else agreed, “we’re working towards one goal, and that’s the kids.”
