Tim Truitt, Spencer County Schools
Kentucky School Advocate
April 2024
Q. You’ve been on the Spencer County School Board since March 2022. Why did you want to become a school board member?
A. My daughter was a student at the high school and my son was at the middle school. At that time, there wasn’t a lot of parent representation on the board, not that it is required, but I think it is important because it creates an extra vested interest. It is different when your kids are students and you are getting information about things like extracurricular activities and grades. And I have always worked in education, so I wanted to see how my knowledge and experience might help the district.
Q. You were a math teacher in Jefferson County and other schools and also worked as an instructional coach in central office at Jefferson County Schools. What value has your work in education had in board service?
A. It gives me a different perspective in conversations around teaching instruction, grading, discipline and such. My math background allows me to ask different questions about data we are reviewing or about assessments. I think that gives everybody else a fuller perspective as to how we then can make the best decision moving forward. In our meetings, there’s a lot of education terminology and acronyms and that doesn’t faze me. I’m able to stay in those conversations.
Q. You now work for a nonprofit educational entity. Tell me about the organization and what you do there.
A. EdReports started in 2014. It grew out of the idea of helping schools and districts as they look at textbooks or other instructional materials to use. EdReports publishes reviews of educational materials. The reviews are free and open to all on our website, edreports.org. Materials are reviewed for alignment to standards and for what we refer to as usability. The materials we review are K-12 math, English language arts and science. We also work with districts that want help in adopting materials — what to look for, who to involve in the process. We contract with practicing educators to conduct the reviews. When we work with schools and districts on adoption processes, we talk about making sure that educators have a voice in the process. I started as a reviewer and am now the managing director for STEM, so I oversee our math and science reviews. I also maintain contact with publishers and vendors and am constantly looking for new materials to review.
Q. Having worked in school systems as a teacher, what’s something that you’ve learned from your board service that you didn’t know before?
A. As a teacher, you know there is a lot that has to take place in support of teachers and students, but being a board member has really made me aware of how much other stuff is going on. For example, following the rules and regulations to ensure we’re getting students fed and paying for it. Or, all that goes into building planning and those rules and regulations, which are there for good reasons but can seem awfully prohibitive.
Getting to know
Hometown: Russell, Kentucky
Family: Wife, Amanda; daughter, Kylee, freshman at Eastern Kentucky University; son, Paxton, sophomore, Spencer County High
Favorite subject in school: Latin and math. I had four years of Latin in high school and double majored in math and Latin in college.
Hobbies: Golf and travel. This summer we are returning to Daufuskie Island, S.C. You take a ferry to get there and only people who live there have cars. Last year we did a Route 66 trip across northern Arizona.
Book recommendation: “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Carol S. Dweck really gets to how we as individuals think about ourselves and about how much power our own mind can have in a situation, setting us up for failure or for success from the get-go.
Interesting fact: Latin hooked me so much that I am certified to teach both Latin and math K-12. Latin has helped me tremendously with writing and speaking because it really forces an understanding of grammar. Also, I find the history of Roman civilization fascinating. It has been interesting to dive deeper into how Roman culture has spiraled into our culture. Latin has also made me a better problem solver. When you translate from Latin to English you have to think about author intent. When I taught Latin in a certified nursing assistant program in Jefferson County, there were some fun mythology components we talked about. For example, the bone that connects your skull to your spine is called the Atlas bone because in Roman mythology, Atlas walked around with the world on his shoulders.