Check Training Hours Member Portal Contact Us Search

School Board Recognition Month

Finances, boundaries, public perception – new board members negotiate a learning curve

Kentucky School Advocate

January 2018

By Madelynn Coldiron

Staff writer

For this School Board Recognition Month, some of the board members who took office during 2017 share the lessons they learned as they took their initial steps in that office. Many of these members of the freshman class were interviewed during KSBA’s Winter Symposium.

Jessica Greenlee and Kayleigh Chain, Cloverport Independent

Kayleigh Chain and Jessica Greenlee, Cloverport Independent
Chain (right) said her first year has been spent focusing on “students and parents and the teachers.”
“It’s all very new to me, so just seeing how it all works and flows is wonderful,” she said. “Just getting the basics this year, just learning from the ground up.”

Greenlee, a more recent appointee, said her fellow board members “have been great – they’ve been very helpful,” and she’s learned a lot “about everything” in a short amount of time. KSBA’s Winter Symposium also was helpful, she said.

Keith LaMastus, Edmonson County
LaMastus was appointed to the Edmonson County board toward the end of 2017 and his initial lessons have focused on his role as a board member. “There’s a lot to it, so far,” he said. “It’s a great experience. I’ve learned a lot of what you can do and what you can’t do. Some of the things that I thought you could do, that you can’t do.”

Shane Hurley, Pike County

Hurley, another late 2017 appointee, said his initial lessons involve what he says is his biggest concern: “The budget crisis. We’re going through a tax increase right now and that worries me a little bit, how the community is reacting to that.”

Tom Lowe, Fairview Independent

Lowe said sorting out policies, procedures and laws surrounding school districts has been the focus of his learning during his freshman year. It’s also been a time of great change and uncertainty “with what they’re trying to do in Frankfort” and the introduction of a new accountability system, he said.

“Sometimes it’s overwhelming. You can’t just stop everything at the board meetings; you need to go home, you’ve got to do a lot of research, you’ve got to find out what legislation is doing and talk to board members in other districts and see how they’re trying to cope with things,” Lowe said. “It seems like it’s a 24/7 job – it’s not just one or two days out of the month. It’s something you’ve got to stay on top of every day.”

Stephen Riggs, McLean County

Riggs, who spent 31 years in the McLean County school system in positions that included band director, administrator and interim superintendent, has learned some lessons in his first year as a board member, despite his familiarity with P-12 education. The different perspective has been “a major change,” he said.

“The pressure that you get from the community that I didn’t get before,” Riggs explained. “And it’s not all complaints – it’s wants and needs and things. I was on the end of doing before, and now I’m on the other side of that. I’ve got to represent my community; I’ve got to work with the other board members. Just dealing with the needs of the community and relationships and the needs of the district. You have to balance that; it’s not easy.”

Aimee Sanders, Butler County

Sanders said she has focused on “what is important for the kids. It’s all about the kids and we have to make decisions that are going to further educate them, help them in any way,” as well as helping teachers.

“I have learned, though, that school boards don’t have the power that so many people think we do. So I get a lot of community members asking me, ‘Why haven’t you done this, why are you all doing this?’ And they have no idea that that’s not our responsibility,” Sanders said. “It’s a lot of laws, decisions, more than just one little point. There are a lot of points that go along with a small point that people don’t realize.”

Daniel Hedgespeth, Green County

“The main thing I’ve learned so far is my role as a board member,” Hedgespeth said. “There is some specific criteria that we are to abide by as far as governing the system and the budget and the district and knowing what our parameters are.”
The biggest lesson he’s learned in that regard has been the board’s role – or lack thereof – in personnel, with the exception of hiring a superintendent. But another challenge, he said, has been the education shorthand: “I’m still trying to learn the acronyms – it’s tough. We need a workshop on acronyms.”

Willliam Robertson, Trimble County

Robertson said he has spent his first year learning about “the process and working with all the board members and working with the superintendent.”

He said he has experienced the “joy of knowing that you’re doing something for kids,” but also some disappointment as the district has not been able to persuade voters that funding is needed to replace an aged school building. “We’ve had the nickel tax voted down a year ago and we put it on the ballot again and it lost again … It has been a big disappointment for us because there were comments that said, ‘Do we need it?’ and the answer is ‘Yes, we need it.’ It’s not a statement that we want it, we need it.”

Related article:

A smooth introduction in Hickman County