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As spring yields to summer in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the men and women elected to serve on area school boards occupy a particularly hot seat.
These public servants typically confront daunting decisions each June about the upcoming fiscal year, weighing what to do about property taxes, school staffing and other thorny, budget-related matters. An editorial in Monday’s edition essentially asked: Do school directors – faced with an increasingly complex range of issues pertaining to education and finance – have the qualifications to competently oversee our school districts?
For all practical purposes, you only need to be 18 or older and “of good moral character” – a phrase lacking in specifics – to serve as a school director in Pennsylvania.
Should the bar be set higher for candidates seeking the post? Should training be required?
Those questions probably resound a bit louder this month for residents of area districts where the funding challenges are steep and the proposed solutions seem unpleasant. Hazleton Area School District officials, for instance, reportedly intend to leave certain posts unfilled for the next school year, furlough teachers and reduce the school week during December, January and February to only four days.
Similarly, a majority of Wilkes-Barre Area’s school directors recently voted to suspend four programs, including the industrial arts, and lay off about 40 staffers. In another district, kindergarten could be on the chopping block.
When it comes to dollars and cents, school board members remain largely at the mercy of state lawmakers who establish school funding levels. Even so, it’s only right to ask if board members routinely receive sufficient training to make the best decisions.
Our editorial on the topic generated online comments such as these:
• “Prior to retirement, I had the (sometimes) pleasure of reporting to boards of education for 17 years as the CEO. More often than not, the inadequacy of education, or even preparation, was at the forefront of costly mistakes.”
• “At this time, each community gets exactly the kind of board it chooses to elect; they get what they ‘deserve,’ so to speak. All the education in the world will not change a board member’s attitude, good or bad. It is attitude that counts the most. Better to ask the simple question: ‘Why are you running for the board?’ And pray the candidate answers truthfully, and that the voters do a bit of research before casting their ballots.”
• “Often, the first year or two of a board member’s service becomes on-the-job training. That leaves a short, two-year time span (before) the next election occurs. Would we be better off transitioning back to a six-year term for school board directors? Every two years, three directors would be up for election. This change could take advantage of knowledgeable directors for a longer period of time.”
So much is at stake in how our public schools are run; let’s keep this conversation going.
Give us your feedback by sending a letter to the editor or posting comments to this editorial at timesleader.com.