Reading…and lots of it.

National School Boards Association Annual Conference – Full Conference, Day 1.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
From Orlando, Florida

By Andrew C.M. Mizsak
Member of the Bedford Board of Education (Bedford, Ohio)
E-Mail: amizsak@sbcglobal.net

Here in Orlando, School Board Members have ample opportunity to obtain countless publications from vendors, other professional associations, and other governmental entities on topics from school health and wellness to transportation to anti-bullying information.

Our colleagues from across the nation are performing one of our most important, yet seldom-mentioned job duties: reading and researching various topics to bring back to our local school boards. School Board Members spend hundreds of hours each year on an individual basis reading and researching in order to educate themselves and each other about the various topics that affect us and the school districts we govern.

Just like any legislative or quasi-legislative body, there are too many issues for us all to master, so in many cases, we take on a limited number of issues and then defer to our colleagues and their expertise on a given issue in order to help us understand it better. Sometimes, we even work with Board Members from other Districts because of the abundance of things to know out there.

As Members of the National School Boards Association, and of our respective State Associations, we are also fortunate to have excellent people who are experts in labor relations, legislation and policy, or whatever other topics to help us out too. This group of professionals work very hard daily to represent over 95,000 school board members nationwide, and the millions of public school children in the 50 States and US Territories.

With regards to reading, and the amounts of publications here at the Conference, I can tell you that I have at least a few weeks worth of professional journals, policy books, and other items that will keep me busy learning. As my Board President, Barbara Patterson, joked with me, “What are you going to do with all of those books? You are going to have to ship them home.” I will get them home, I will read on the plane, I will take plenty of notes, and then I will continue to communicate with our constituents, with my fellow Board Members, with our Association Staffs, and with our fellow public officials as to how to continue to improve public education.

My good friend and colleague, Joe Mestnik, of the Bedford BOE, who cannot be with us here in Orlando, has a wonderful sense about him of finding great reading material, and is always quick with a suggestion for a good book or article.

The job of a Board of Education Member is more than just hiring Superintendents and approving budgets and buying textbooks and buses. It is governing. It is the oversight of a political subdivision – a special district – where dedicated individuals do their best, and do what they think is right to help children, and give them the tools they need to succeed.

As in anything related to school, this job includes homework. Our homework is to become knowledgeable, to understand the issues that we need to know, and to share this knowledge with all of you and each other.

I look forward to diving into these publications, and receiving the best compensation that anyone can ever receive: the gift of knowledge.