During last week's PTO/CTA candidate forum, each candidate drew random questions and answered that question. Then, as a follow-up, the PTO/CTA provided us with five (5) questions to each answer in writing. Today, they were due to Sherri. So, I'll paste my answers below. The format was:
1. Briefly describe two ideas that you would like to implement if you were elected to serve on the school board. I would like the board to work with the administration and community leaders to seek either federal or foundation grant opportunities for some of our district needs. An example would be focusing on a grant proposal to improve our technology infrastructure. A second example could be grants for expanded mental health services for students. My second idea that I would like to implement would be a regular (annual or bi-annual) school board and administrator retreat and encourage more educational presentations about the district as opposed to focusing on written reports during the board meetings themselves. During a retreat (even if it’s 1-day), the board can build relationships with each other and the administrators. The retreat should provide board members with information on how the district operates, allow the board to set their calendar for the year, compare the structure of our board meetings compared to others across the state, and ensure that progress on our district goals and strategic planning process is taking place and can be adjusted. Encouraging presentations (both from administrators, teachers, and students) instead of focusing on written reports would help with transparency and board member knowledge. 2. Please describe in your opinion what the role of a school board member is. A school board member should be a voice for the vision, goals, and strategic plan of the school district. Each school board member should practice some essential qualities:
3. What do you feel should be the district’s priorities? What would you like to see change in our district? The broad priorities of the district should be to focus on accomplishing the strategic plans of the district. We should constantly evaluate our current plans and ensure this is the direction (board and administration) that is best for the community. This would provide clear direction for nearly all decisions: budgetary and financial, extracurricular, curriculum, how we’re organized as a district, and growth of new ideas. Due to our financial uncertainty, our current fiscal situation should be monitored closely. We shouldn’t make rash budgetary decisions for short-term financial security. The school board should work with the administration before approving next year’s budget to present a short (1 year), medium (2-4 years), and long-term (5+ years) analysis of the district’s fiscal outlook. This would reassure faculty and staff of the district’s direction, focus on the strategic plans of the district and student achievement, and shows taxpayers the financial needs of the district to meet these goals. As far as changes in our district, I would like to see the school board take ownership of practicing transparency and take the leadership role in working to rebuild trust in our community. There appears to have been very little movement in the board a unit. I would also like to see our school board actively review best practices of school boards across Missouri in order to better ourselves. 4. What do you see as the school board’s role in the budgeting process? The school board’s role in the budgeting process is to multi-fold. At a macro-level, the school board should be knowledgeable about and be prepared to advocate during the state legislative process while understand the federal government’s role in the budget. Within the district level, the school board should ensure that the budget reflects the stated vision and priorities of the district, is the best budget possible for all students, and is financially sound. After presented and approved, the school board’s role should be to ensure that the budget is communicated to citizens, monitored throughout the year on a percentage basis in (addition to approving the individual expenditures at each board meeting), and to pay special attention to accounts that are significantly (5%) over or under budget throughout the year. 5. What makes you the best candidate for the school board? Even though I’ve only lived in Hallsville for 3 years, I bring a unique set of skills and have a long-term view of ensuring our schools remain strong. Professionally, I manage a nonprofit organization with revenues of more than $700,000 last year. My expertise includes knowledge about the state legislature, the foundation formula, education policies and even served on a school board as a student in high school. Personally, I am a first-generation college graduate and foster parent; I understand as a district, we need to provide a wide array of educational options for our children. I’m a consensus builder and want to focus on moving forward to bring us together. I will bring both experience and a new, different perspective to the school board. I humbly ask you to write-in “Craig Stevenson” on your ballot on April 5th for our Hallsville Board of Education. Short Bio I’m the associate director of the Mozambique Initiative, a formal partnership between Methodist churches in Missouri and in Mozambique, Africa. Prior to joining the Methodist Church, I worked for the University of Missouri System for five years in the Office of University Relations. I’m a first-generation college graduate with a bachelors and master’s degree. In 2009, I married my high school sweetheart, Brittney, and we are originally from Rolla. We are foster parents and look forward to hopefully raising biological children in Hallsville, too. We’re members of Hallsville United Methodist Church and I’m in the candidacy process of becoming an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. The reason why we live in Hallsville is because of the school district. For a short period of time, Brittney was a part-time occupational therapist (OT) with the contract OT of the Hallsville school district after she graduated from college. She loved the faculty, staff, and the district demographics. When we wanted to buy or build a home, we focused on Hallsville. After attending the community forum on the tax levy in January and the February school board meeting, I felt that I had a unique set of skills that could be helpful to the school board. The skills I believe I bring to the table include experiences from serving as the first student representative on a school board (Rolla) in the state of Missouri while in high school, seeking out education policy classes in college, and lobbying on behalf of higher education as a career have prepared me to serve on our school board.
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Election Day, April 5, is just 2 weeks (and one day) away! I've been working with the county clerk's office and have filed the appropriate paperwork to be a certified write-in candidate. In that spirit, I figured it was a good time to post an example of a sample ballot with my name written in. You can see my sample ballot below with a reminder showing you how to write-in a candidate's name, If you live within the city of Hallsville, you'll have additional city positions to vote for. To vote for me as the write-in candidate, the key is to only vote for one (1) other candidate in the school board section and then fill in the bubble and write-in the race (school board or board of education) and my name at the bottom of the ballot. Yes -- this is a little work -- but I will be humbled by each person who takes the time to do so! We get to participate in our democracy just over two weeks, We'll see these political yard signs go up for a few weeks -- and then be taken down until the next round of approaches for the August primaries. I won't have any yard signs, but I am working on another method of outreach to share in the coming days. Look for more to come, here. In other news, tomorrow is the deadline for our 5 questions to answer from the PTO/CTA candidate forum. I turned my answers in last week, but I'll post the answers to my questions as my next blog post either tomorrow or Wednesday. Please let me know if you have any questions. Happy Monday! Craig Whew! It's been a busy week and it's only Tuesday evening!
Since the board meeting took place tonight, let's start there. It was an interesting meeting, especially looking at it from a candidate's lens. The biggest observation/need that I saw was that the board doesn't seem to be functioning as a group of people who all have collective buy-in for one vision of the district. I believe that as soon as the new board members are sworn in, the board and administrators should go on a retreat in order to build relationships among each other. This should be a time for visioning and building of trust. After following the Rolla school board for more than a decade, I have found they function as a team, Tonight, I felt like I witnessed a board meeting that operated like an individual sport, not as cohesive team. That may be too critical of them, but it was an outsider's perception. For our district to be successful, the school board needs to operate and show confidence together. The board sets the tone for the community. My perception of the tone was: tense, brief, and fairly critical of the administration and each other as board members. Again, I admit that this may be an unfair characterization, but it was my perception while in the room. I don't believe it was a conducive environment for raising morale, fixing our problems, and coming together as a community. As I was studying for the candidate forum, I was looking at the strategic plans of the buildings. We are (and should be) in somewhat of a holding pattern in until final budget decisions and superintendency have been made. However, those strategic plans should drive conversations and decisions. In the board meetings I have attended -- they have not been mentioned at all. Perhaps there is a reason for this, but this plan is featured prominently on the School Board's "eBoard" website. When I worked for the University, I learned that these documents are incredibly important to have a unified direction to move forward. This document should guide virtually every decision. When I had to adjust to this way of thinking as a staff member, it was difficult and frustrating. However, as time went on, it made my work seem even more valuable. I think focusing on this strategic plan could help bring confidence to everyone. We would see (hopefully) progress instead of focusing on the negatives that we live with. The board was (and should be) watchful of the expenditures that they approve. There were several questions related to specific expenditures on the Pcard and journal entries/checks. We are in a tight financial position. However, I felt like many of the expenditure questions were fairly pointed and the underlying tone was critical. As a board member, there's a fine (and often difficult) line here. The board should not micromanage expenditures, and if there are questions -- I feel like they should likely be addressed one-on-one with the superintendent who can answer it and perhaps address it proactively instead of being 'called out' in front of everyone for defending expenditures that are within the budget that the board itself approves. In my opinion, the board should be more concerned about if these expenditures are within the budgeted amounts. The board has a fiduciary responsibility to be fiscally sound, but if there's a perception of micromanaging at the faculty/staff/administrative levels, this will only hurt morale. In a nutshell, I felt like the Board is in the need of a leader. The board needs a leader would be willing to support the administration in finding solutions to our financial hardships, cultivating relationships among the community, practices transparency, and is an outside-the-box thinker. Enough about tonight. What about last night? I really enjoy meeting people and talking education policy. I'm probably a nerd because of that. It feeds my soul in many ways, to hear people's opinions and learn from others. I was asked two questions by multiple people last night that I thought I would share my thoughts on. 1) What is my opinion on a 4-day school week? The current research shows there are minimal (if any) student achievement improvements and often less than anticipated savings. However, today, my opinion is that I don't think this is a smart idea. The only savings (potentially) is on transportation, food (but often covered/offset by federal funding and should be a net-even proposition), and substitute teachers. Fixed costs remain the same. For example, the district still has to heat/cool the building and there's no savings from salaries and benefits (the largest expenditure of a district). There are questions about how to handle childcare for young children and teenagers alike. Hallsville is a bedroom community for our surrounding areas, meaning the vast majority of the folks aren't able to flex their schedules and stay home one day each week. Would I want my child home (when age appropriate) alone all day for one day each week? I'm not so sure. There also concerns around extracurricular activities that need (and deserve) to practice/play on that additional day of the week that would need to be addressed. 2) What is my opinion on how to improve the technology usage the district? Technology is an important part of our society. I would encourage our district to look at grant opportunities for us as a rural school district in cooperation with the US Dept. of Education and foundations. From my days of advocating for federal grants, I know there are opportunities like the i3 grant (Investing in Innovation) at the federal level that may be able to assist our district. Our children need computers that are functional and up-to-date to learn from. Does each student need their own iPad? I would look toward research before jumping on this trend, especially in this fiscally tight environment. I look forward to working and hearing from more folks as election day is three weeks from today! Let me know your questions, concerns, and I am happy to share my thoughts. Have a great day! Craig As I've said in previous posts, I'm taking questions from a national Chamber school board questionnaire and addressing them as the election approaches. Today's questions are related to performance, outcomes, and equity.
What are opportunities and challenges in this district? I'm an optimistic, positive guy, but for us to be successful it is crucial to understand our challenges. Opportunities: In my short time (3 years) of living in Hallsville, I've been impressed by the many activities for our students. A few examples include the quiz bowl and speech team, band, and athletics, For a relatively small district, the faculty and student support for these extracurricular activities is something we should be proud of. These are opportunities for us to rally behind each other as a community. The amount of community interest in the last few weeks has proven that the Hallsville community is interested in providing a quality education for our students. By harnessing these opportunities in a collective way, we can improve our schools and come together as a community. As a community, an opportunity for us, collectively is our dedicated, fantastic faculty and staff. I've witnessed it at the high school levels, and heard great stories of our teachers and staff in the primary and intermediate levels. Our extracurricular options, teacher-staff buy-in, and community interest are all opportunities for us to be successful. Challenges: Similar to the opportunities, I'll highlight three challenges. The obvious challenge is our financial position as a district. The public still should know answers to questions about our financial situation as a district. However, the Board approved a budget last year (2015) with approximately a $1 million deficit. This didn't just happen over the last three weeks. In addition, I've noted that of the Boone County school districts, Hallsville has the lowest tax levy. This is great for taxpayers, but leads me to my next challenge: faculty/staff morale. I believe that our school board members haven't worked hard enough to support morale of our district. Little things like spending time in the buildings, outreaching to teachers, including participation in school board meetings, sending notice to staff prior to the Board announcement of Superintendent Robertson's resignation, among other things could go a long way to raise morale of our teachers, staff, and administrators. Lastly, a challenge of the district is trust among the citizens. Lack of trust is why the idea of a tax levy increase was pulled from the ballot. To what degree are students in this district on track for postsecondary readiness? How do you know? There is a variety of measured outcomes that DESE (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) release that our district should use for postsecondary readiness. Our students have several options to chose from that fits a variety of needs. Examples of these include gifted programs, college preparation assistance, and career/technical options for students. It appears that secondary education is personalized and success is individualized. This is important. The success of these programs is measured by the dropout rate, for which Hallsville boasts a dropout rate that is 1/3 the state's average. This shows our variety of academic programs is successfully preparing students for postsecondary success. Against what metrics will you assess district leadership’s attainment of key goals? How will you know when a program or decision has been successful? This is a difficult question to answer because it depends on the situation and goal. Some are very simple. For example, if the goal is to increase the average ACT score of the district, That metric will be used to establish the base and growth plan of the ACT score. Other goals and metrics are more complicated. For example, as the district addresses student proficiency in mathematics at the primary level (in the strategic plan), this is a complicated and even a challenging goal. The strategic plan includes the proficiency scores, small groups, and individual math interventions. If these are completed but proficiency rates do not rise, then we need to tweak the strategies and metrics. Metrics are must-have tools to attain goals. They allow progress to be noted, but I believe we must be flexible. Metrics are the means to reaching the end. Selected metrics may not be the "golden ticket" solution. They likely need to be constantly addressed, so the Board and district need to be flexible. As I prepare for the PTO Candidate Forum on Monday, please let me know if there are any specific questions you may have. I look forward to meeting many of the members in our community. Happy Wednesday! |
AuthorHallsville resident. Foster Parent. School board member. Politico. Jesus Follower. Cardinals Fan #MizzouMade Archives
June 2020
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