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Kentucky School Advocate

June 2018

Registration renovation
School board members and others registering online for KSBA’s Summer Leadership Institute, July 13-14, will find a more clear, and easy to follow and use registration system. The new setup is being unveiled in time for the summer event registration, and users will find other advantages besides ease of use, said Laura Cole, KSBA’s director of Board Team Development.

One of those advantages is that the new registration system will be directly linked to another improvement: an upgraded version of KSBA’s mobile app. “When you download the app at a conference and log in, it will automatically build your schedule for you based on your registration,” Cole said.

The new system also offers a plus for superintendents’ administrative assistants, who often handle registration to KSBA trainings for school board members. The new system will enable them to register all board members at one time, rather than by one individual registration each, Cole said. KSBA will be emailing instructions to superintendents’ administrative assistants to explain the steps involved in registering a group.

The old registration setup also could not recognize when more popular clinic sessions were being overbooked. Cole said the new system will block registrations to clinics when their cap has been reached, so board members will be able to choose an alternate. Clinic sessions will still be operated on a first-come, first-served basis.

New faces
KSBA’s communications and legal services are welcoming two new faces. Josh Shoulta came on board May 16 as the association’s communications director. Shoulta, a Frankfort resident, has extensive experience in all forms of writing, including social media, web content, press releases and speeches, as well as in website and social media management. He comes to KSBA from Sacred Heart Schools in Louisville, where he was director of enrollment, marketing and communications since 2012. Prior to that, Shoulta was public relations manager for Family & Children’s Place of Louisville. He also worked as assistant director of admissions at Georgetown College. Shoulta holds a bachelor’s degree in motion picture arts from Georgetown College and a master’s degree in cultural sustainability from Goucher College in Maryland.

Amy Peabody joined KSBA June 1 as staff attorney and Legal Services trainer. Most recently, she worked for nine years as an attorney for the Kentucky Department of Education, where her duties included researching and advising the agency on legal issues, presenting at conferences on education law, drafting legislative language and administrative regulations, responding to Open Meetings and Open Records requests, and reviewing and approving school district real property transactions. Peabody has also worked as an attorney for the Kentucky Retirement Systems and the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet, and for Stites & Harbison in the private sector. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications disorders and a master’s in organizational communication, both from Murray State University. She earned her doctorate from University of Kentucky College of Law.

ENERGY STAR award

It was the third year in a row for KSBA to be awarded the U.S. EPA’s ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year Award for Sustained Excellence. At the ceremony in Washington D.C. are, from left, EPA’s Jacob Moss; KSBA School Energy Managers Project Director Ron Willhite; KSBA Executive Director Kerri Schelling; and Carolyn Snyder with the EPA. KSBA was recognized for creating the School Energy Managers Project to help districts implement energy-efficiency projects in schools, for serving as a resource for district energy managers and for increasing the number of ENERGY STAR-certified schools in Kentucky.