Viewpoints

As a board member, working with all stakeholders to accomplish the primary work of providing all of our students with a holistic education will remain front and center. Below are some thoughts I have on some questions below

What are some reasons for seeking election, and issues that motivates you to serve on the Board of Education?motivate

• Curriculum design by integration

• To serve our student body holistically

• Decision-making is approached equitably.

• Cohesive integration and increased stability of hired Superintendents

What leadership skill set would you offer to benefit service on the board

• I am a mobilizer and an active community participant.

• My decision-making skills are about creating collaborative solutions.

• I am a value integrator and not in an overpowering approach of dominance.

• I have a keen eye for recognizing and an ear for hearing the input of silent voices.

• I have managerial and leadership skills that bring redirection and focus to tasks.

What qualities would you look for in hiring the next Superintendent of schools?

• Listener

• Visionary

• Integrator

• Collaborator

• Ethically firm

• Communicative

• Interpersonal skills

• Most importantly, I am committed to students.

What proposals would you recommend to help oversee the implementation and accomplishments of district goals and policies?

• Outcome monitoring - Review desired results of program achievement.

• Budget development – Integrate evidence of value into budget and policy decisions

• Implementation oversight – Scrutinize the effective delivery process of established programs.

• Perform targeted evaluation - Thoroughly evaluate programs that lack in their productivity

• Program assessment – Holistic measuring elements to assess evidence of program effectiveness

What is your take on ways to improve student achievements, engagements as community citizens, and overall development of life skills?

• Strengthen education leadership to improve student achievement;

• Interschool partnership projects to increase diverse interactions with other ethnic groups

• DIY skill developments as extracurricular initiatives, and provide or recommend paid internships

• Improve out-of-school learning by collaborating with the community via the library and the youth council.

• Increase ethnic diversity in the curriculum to allow all students to have a space to learn about themselves.

To enrich college readiness for all students, what are your recommendations besides the high-impact learning that utilizes traditional teaching methods?

• Introduce Pre-concept and Blended Learning: Pre-work is included in homework assignments to familiarize oneself with novel concepts before face-to-face instruction. The process prepares the brain to become more receptive to newly taught content. Following face-to-face instruction, students absorb course content outside of class—through lecture videos or online activities —and then use classroom time to reinforce their understanding of content.

• Institute Adaptive learning for personalized education: Incorporate adaptive learning technology to tailor learning to a student's current level of mastery, anticipating what content and resources each student needs at each point in their learning process for each course

• Accommodate Competency-based education: Allow for learning at student pace and measure attainment through demonstrated proficiency.

In what ways would you suggest improvement toward Special Education programs for adequate student support and success?

This question, amongst many others, is quite close to home.

• Inclusiveness leads to normalizing students in special education with everybody else in the school.

• Equitable resources that will enhance learning, apart from those of the general education setting

• A drastic approach to improve literacy by;

  • Skill training toward implementation techniques

  • Instructional tools to augment established Program design

  • Data-driven implementation in structuring programs and instruction to improve students in Special Ed

What is your take on the Budget?

• Streamline expenditure processes

• Explore ways to increase revenue outside of tax increases.

• Employ benchmarking data to determine cost-effective measures.

• Identify instructional goals aligned with clearly defined spending strategies.

• Mapping out and aligning deliberate connections between business and education services

____________

Additional Sources

Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative. (2014). Evidence-based policymaking: A guide for effective government. Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts.

De Bruin, L. (2014). Budget control and monitoring challenges for school governing bodies (Doctoral dissertation, North-West University).