School Boards Impact Everyone’s Life
Don’t believe me? Then think property values. Bad Schools will directly impact the cost of your home and the quality of your neighborhood.
Now, is everyone paying attention? School Board elections aren’t just for those people with children.
Elections for School Board will be held in May. Anyone interested in running has until March 6th to file. And even if you’re not interested in running for an unpaid, thankless, yet influential job, you need to pay attention to who is. You also need to vote.
Hat Tip to Joanne Christian. Thanks for the heads up, although I’m not sure if I agree that School Boards are the purest form of non-partisan, elected, public office available in Delaware – but, then again, I live in Red Clay!
Tags: Education, School Board Elections
So, Pandora — are you filing? Need some campaign help?
🙂
My district isn’t open – Thank God!
Thanks for the school board plug Pandora–and I’ll leave your Red Clay disclaimer alone for those who live there (calling Kilroy!).
But seriously readers, it is about property values, it is about YOUR values as a community, and where you allocate nearly 30% of received revenue on behalf of education in your area–do you become a district that gobbles up the money in filling positions, strengthening classroom experiences, providing after school programs, creating opportunities of excellence for high achieving students, support professional development for staff and administrators, fund athletics, extra-curricular activities, and a bevy of other concerns, that in Delaware still have local control by school boards. And that is just one facet….
Reaching further, school boards do meet with legislators to express impact of pending legislation, to help counter unintended consequences of what may have been viewed as sensible, compassionate legislation (workforce housing comes to mind), and to highlight the ridiculous sanction of unfunded mandates that strip dollars from the classroom (like public schools handling the cost of community notification of sex offenders moving into an area). And yes on a national level it is meeting w/ Rep. Castle and giving him the view from the trenches of what NCLB has done to raise the water all around…bouying some and drowning others, and how passage of SCHPS not only effects medical insurance for schoolkids, but reimbursement to school districts for care given by school nurses….of which throw the stones Jason if you want…but was enlightened to that end realizing that’s some pretty cost-efffective care given in the schools.
More important, you are the pulse-reader of your community to firefight the pending scuttles, and to envision direction of where a district should be going to catapault their young charges to the best opportunities out there post graduation. It is advocacy and adversity in heavy doses–with a bottom line of financial stewardship of the taxpayer’s dime to the fullest benefit of a child’s education. And anyone who thinks they should be done paying school taxes, because they no longer have kids in the system, or never used the system had better think again. Because I sure as heck don’t want my future needed bridge-builder, or neurosurgeon to be any less prepared than what is being done today–and I aim to see it stays that way. So if you don’t plan to run for school board, recruit someone who will and values the direction education is going in your area—because it may be home values today–but it will be your nursing home care in the future!!! Thanks Pandora for the rant….
Thank you Joanne!
The school board is a very important position. If you need proof, just look at all the trouble stirred up by school boards rejecting science standards and mandating the teaching of intelligent design creationism.
This is a great post, because in one week, a progressive candidate will be announcing their candidacy for the at-large seat on the Cape Henlopen school board.
MJ – would that be you?