| Our plans for the future as the new board takes its seat on April 9, 2013 Beginning on April 9, 2013, these are our plans that the present school board majority has voted against and blocked. As the new open government school board takes it seat following the April 13, 2013 school board elections, we must engage ourselves in correcting the issues that has kept our school district behind with less than three out of every ten of our students being on grade level in the 2010-2011 school year as the successful school board of the future. Going forward, following the April 13, 2013 elections, we plan to commit to a vision of high expectations for student achievement and quality instruction that will define clear measurable goals toward our vision that will be unemcumbered and free from being blocked. As an effective new board 227, we will remain focused to make sure these goals remain district 227's top priorities meaning that nothing else detracts from them. It means having an understanding that both the school board and the superintendent, our employee, have significant roles to play in continuous improvement. Continuous improvement means the board meeting among itself first and then with the superintendent later to ask continuous improvement questions. For clarity and understanding of our roles in continuous improvement, the board will then discuss the roles of the board and then the superintendent in continuous improvement. We can develop a committee to plan team considerations for developing a plan for continuous improvement. We can do this first with the board and then with the superintendent. This makes for an effective with integrity and accountable school board 227 that will positively impact student achievement levels. It involves evaluating all functions of our board from internal governance and policy formulation to how we communicate with ourselves, superintendent, building administrators, teachers, students and the district 227 community. The ways things are right now, as a low achieving board, wth suppression of commnication, the majority of our board members are not even vaguely aware of school improvement initiatives, what we should be doing together as a school board, or understand what a measurable educational goal is or how to achieve one. We can't achieve that which we don understand or is aware of the meaning or its essential importance. We don't respect what we don't inspect, discuss and evaluate. As a result, there is not even a vague focus on formative goal assessment, school renewal, student progress, meeting to discuss data analysis, or superintendent performance either during or at the conclusion of the school year. Neither is there any or relevant continuous formative evaluation and monitoring for change and improvement at any level since it is not present at the board level. As an effective school board, going forward after April 9, 2013, we will demonstrate strong shared beliefs and values about what is possible for students and their ability to learn, and of school district 227's ability to teacher its children at higher levels. With our new school board, we will view poverty, lack of parental involvement and other factors as challenges to be discussed and overcome, not as excuses to blame the victims who have been shut out of this essential process, our children, parents, and our community. As effective and proactive board members, we will expect to see improvement in student achievement quickly as a result of the above initiatives. Today, with our present school board, we see external pressures, our need for open communication, honesty, and transparency, among all board members, with our parents, students and community and lack of board encouragement of community and full board participation as the main reasons for lack of student success, As a new school board on April 9, 2013, we will be accountability and data-driven driven, spending less time unfocused on our present goal in the thick of thin things. We will spend more time focused on district goal policies to improve student achievement levels. As a high performing board 227, we will focus on establishing a school improvement vision with measurable goal achievement benchmarks supported by board policies that target student achievement levels and what must be done to improve. Presently, the board's performance is characterized by lack of governance and negative factors such as controlling and suppressing targeted board members, parents, and community's freedom of speech rights rather than encouraging full participation in solving our school district's under achievement problems for over two decades. The present nontransparent school board is likely to cite denials, lies, and excuses for not following the Open Meetings law and encouraging full board and community communication and barriers as excuses for not reaching out to the full board and its community. But there are no excuses for stripping our community and targeted board members of their right to public participation or for immediate and correct responses to the community's questions. Since we are without an open and transparent school board now, the vast majority of parents and community members don't know board 227 members at all, the status or our district's academic, instructional, and fiscal realities, and what we must do to improve. As an effective school board, we intend to develop collaborative relationships and transsparency with the full board, staff, parents, and community, and establish a strong two-way-feedback-flexible-communication structure to inform and engage both internal and external stakeholders in setting and achieving district 227's goals. We will ovey that state's law by followin a regular process to vew student achievement data to ensure constinuous improvement. We will adopt board policies that support continuous improvement. We will support publicly and communicate the value of continuous improvement to the community. As an effective transparent school board, board members will provide specific examples of how we have connected and listened to the community, and how school board members have received information from many different sources, including student achievement data, the superintendent, curriculum director, principals, and teachers, parents, and students. Findings and research can be shared among all board members and our community. |
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