A policy makeover for St. Paul Education

As a member of the St. Paul Education Policy Committee, it was an exciting day for me on Friday, June 12, 2009, as the Board of Trustees began a revision of our entire policies manual. I know...you're probably thinking, "What? Policies are exciting?". It's just not about revising policy, it is about reviewing and improving upon our roles as legislators within the school division. It still may not be that exciting for some of you, but it is exciting for me to see this type of change within the division.

We are using the services of Alberta School Boards Association, and more specifically, Leroy Sloan and Terry Gunderson. We are taking the hundreds of policies that exist in our current manual, extracting the ones pertaining to board governance and placing them in a new Board Governance Policy Handbook. All other "policies" that do not pertain to board governance, will become administrative procedures -- the Superintendent's "handbook." 

This shift also includes a Board Annual Work Plan, which outlines the reports and items we should be reviewing on a month-by-month basis. It just makes for more organization and streamlining our governance roles as trustees. 

The next step is for administration to review all of the remaining policies to be converted into administrative procedures. Then we will finalize our Board Handbook in the fall. These two new documents, the Board Governance Policy Handbook and the Administrative Procedures, will be posted on our new website which is also undergoing a makeover, later in the fall. 

I feel our Board has accomplished a lot since I was elected almost two years ago. Looking forward to the next school year and more progression.

Where do we stand as school trustees?

Our Spring General Meeting of the Alberta School Boards Association stirred up a lot of discussion, and hopefully, subsequent action on the future of school board governance. 

We were reminded that the responsibilities of school boards has pretty much remained the same over the past 150 years and that we are pretty much at the bottom of the political totem pole. Not too encouraging. But we were also inspired to do something about it.

Mr. Ken Chapman's presentation was called, "A Contented Oyster Never Made a Pearl," meaning that we, as school boards, could sit back and be irritated or do something about it and turn it into a pearl. 

With the millions of people all over the world connected through social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs, Mr. Chapman planted the seed of thought to use this form of media to reach out to our communities. Of course, traditional, face-to-face communication will remain a time-honoured tool, but we cannot sit back and let the new forms of communication pass us by. 

It is time for all school boards to become more connected to their communities through all forms of community engagement. Once we become "influentials" by forming a connected voice, we will be able to overcome this top-down style of government we have become accustomed to in Alberta. Bill 44 spurred the initial connected voice. We need to keep the momentum going and foster these influential relationships.

Bill 44 stirs up the fire in the belly of school trustees

Mr. Chapman was a presenter at the Alberta School Boards Association spring general meeting on June 1,2, 2009. He has a lot of good things to say in this post:

Ken Chapman: Alberta School Trustees Seething Mad About Bill 44