School board members typically serve 4-year staggered terms.These boards govern local public school districts, setting policies for curriculum, budgets, and district priorities. Responsibilities include hiring and evaluating the superintendent, approving school budgets, setting academic goals, and representing community interests in education decisions such as school boundaries, programs, and funding allocation. School boards do not manage day-to-day operations but provide high-level direction and accountability for district performance. School board elections are nonpartisan.
To support ELL learners, it is important to ensure that all educators have the training and supports that they need to assist the students. Whether that is through certifications or training on sheltered instruction. Immigrant students may also need cultural support as well. They may have suffered through traumatic events and also missed years of schooling that need to be addressed. Their language skills will be very diverse. When I was teaching Math, I had a class with 5 or 6 Somali students. What helped me ws to indentify the most proficient students in English and they helped peer tutor the others in their language.
In my experience in looking at district budgets, it is nearly impossible to identify specific programs without looking at the particulary district. I would say that I would have already been in contact with patrons and educators to try and know what they feel is important and is effective with students. I would look at data to help determine what is working. It may also make sense to trim one area in one geographic location in a district as large as Granite, and another one somewhere else.
I would expect that Granite's HR department would have some sense of why teachers are leaving and could the Board some idea about what to address. I would also want to communicate with as many teachers as possible to see what their needs are. Many times this is best accomplished through their representatives, their professional association, in Granite, the Granite Education Association. Right now I know that working conditions, especially agressive student behavior is a major concern and I would like to dive into any policies that are already in place, assess their effectiveness, and see what else can be done to make schools safe for everyone. A place where learning can occur for all students.
The way it is supposed to work in Utah is that the Legislature makes general laws and then the State School Board sets standards. Then the local school boards select curriculum and books based on guidelines to fulfill the Utah standards. The best role the school board can play is this is to appoint subject matter committees, task forces, or work groups to make recommendations to the Board for adoption. When I was teaching, I served on the Math textbook adoption group. Things a bit differnet now because there are open source materials and such. This is why is important to have educators involved along with PARENTS on the group reviewing the curriulum. Granite also needs to have group put together to review any challenged books per law.
No student can learn is they don't fell safe. Therefore, everything needs to be done to eradicate any thing that is creating an unsafe environment. Teachers and administrators, must take all bullying seriously and follow policies and consequences consistently. Any assaults and threats must be dealt with as well. As a Board Member, I would review all current policies, check to see if they are being followed, and determine changes to them or get new ones. I would work with the supervisors over the schools to determine the policies needed and maintain the rights of all students and employees to have safe learning and working environments. I would ask Legal and Granite Police what can we do about the recent concern about ICE by schools.
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