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Kentucky School Advocate

July/August 2017

Interim Executive Director Kerri Schelling

Leadership changes
KSBA Associate Executive Director Kerri Schelling is now serving as the association’s interim executive director following a leadership change that became effective July 1 when Mike Armstrong moved from the top job to a new position as educational advisor.

The KSBA board’s Governance Committee is in the process of initiating and conducting a search for a new executive director, in hopes of bringing recommendations to the full board within 90 days.

In his new position, Armstrong “will perform a variety of functions, including consultation and research on educational policy issues and advice, reporting directly to the new executive director once that person is hired,” KSBA President David Webster of Simpson County said. Armstrong, a former Lawrence County Schools superintendent, came to KSBA in 2014.

“For the past two-and-a-half years, Mike has lived and worked in Frankfort, a drive of nearly three hours from his home in Louisa. I have come to know Mike as a deeply devoted husband and family man, and I appreciate his service to the association,” Webster added. “This new arrangement will allow KSBA to continue to benefit from Mike’s knowledge and experience, while enabling him to work from his home. This is an option KSBA has afforded to select full- and part-time employees in the past.”

Schelling has been with KSBA for 18 years, starting as a school safety specialist and later becoming director of the association’s Board Team Development unit, where she oversaw planning and management of all association conferences. She became associate executive director in 2016.

Diesel replacement
More than a dozen Kentucky school districts have until Aug. 15 to apply through the state Transportation Cabinet for funding to help replace older diesel buses with propane gas models. Eligible counties are: Boone, Boyd, Bullitt, Campbell, Christian, Daviess, Edmonson, Fayette, Jefferson, Kenton, Marshall, Oldham, and Scott; and portions of Greenup, Hancock, Lawrence, and Livingston counties. For information, go to transportation.ky.gov and enter “CMAQ” in the agency’s search box.

2016 in-service training report
Kentucky school board members are becoming more efficient when it comes to their training. The 2016 local board training report shows that the 867 board members earned nearly 10,687 hours of training credit. That continued the downward trend of the last few years – the 2015 total was 11,357.

Even so, nearly 90 percent of school board members earned above the minimum requirements, to the tune of 4,272 hours. Requirements for training hours are based on length of service and a mandate for annual training in finance, ethics and superintendent evaluation.

“Folks are getting their hours more efficiently,” said KSBA Interim Executive Director Kerri Schelling. “Members are becoming more accustomed to the mandated topics and are incorporating them into their professional development plan more efficiently.”

Schelling presented the training report in June to the Kentucky Board of Education.

The report also showed that just 15 members did not meet the minimum training requirements for 2016, compared with 26 the previous year. Seven of the 15 were appointed after March 1, 2016 or were elected in November 2016 to fill an unexpired term. The state board granted KSBA’s request to give them additional time to complete the requirements.

Of the eight others, most were missing training in one or more of the mandated topics (finance, superintendent evaluation and ethics) and needed as little as one-half credit hour at the time of the Dec. 31, 2016 deadline. Since that time, all of those board members have earned the necessary training credit, and were granted approval by KBE to apply the hours to 2016.