School Board U

When schools, parents, families, and communities work together to support learning, students tend to earn higher grades, attend school more regularly, stay in school longer, and enroll in higher level programs. To ensure that the students of today are ready for the careers of tomorrow, families, schools, and community groups need to work together to promote engagement that is systemic, sustained, and integrated into school improvement efforts.

DEI 101: Foundational Principles of Educational Equity
This will include: The “why” this topic is important to Board governance; Terminology/definitions; An introduction to biases we all have that can affect the Board’s decision-making process; and an introduction to micro-aggressions which can impact an organization’s climate and relationships.

DEI 102: The Intersection of Educational Equity, Inclusion & Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)
Picking up from the DEI 101 recording which ends with bias/micro-aggressions, this session will introduce the principles of whole-child supports in a school setting and their educational equity and inclusion implications. Student success is not just academic, it is impacted by relationships with the adults in the system. The Board can support positive building and district climate by having a basic understanding of these principles and how they affect a district’s attendance, discipline, academic achievement, and other areas where disparities are present.

DEI 103: How to Govern Effectively Using an Educational Equity Lens
This session will cover the Board’s policy, resource allocation, and community leadership/engagement roles in promoting and supporting equity throughout their system.

The growing importance of education equity is based on the premise that an individual’s level of education directly correlates to future quality of life. Therefore, an academic system that practices educational equity is a strong foundation of a society that is fair and thriving. However, inequity in education is challenging to avoid, and can be broken down into inequity due to socioeconomic standing, race, gender or disability.

This course will focus on the characteristics of high performing school boards. Topics will include roles & responsibilities, culture and best practices related to strategic planning and evaluations.

This course focuses on best practices related to school boards and superintendents “the Governance Team” doing a self-assessment. How does a group assess themselves as one governing body. Topics include: planning for and implementing a well thought out self-assessment instrument and process.

This course focuses on the board’s role in improving student achievement. Topics covered include: characteristics of a highly effective board, roles & responsibilities, board member professional development, as well as, superintendent evaluation.

Georgia law has a specific manner in which school districts need to comply with related to Open Records/Open Meetings. This course will describe the specifics that belong and focus on what board members and superintendents should do to comply with these laws.

A school board member is the place where Governance Teams (the Superintendent and the school board) conduct their business. They are open to the public and as such, how the meetings are run and how board members conduct themselves is extremely important. This course will provide system best practices in running an effective school board meeting.

This course focuses on best practices in strategic planning. The course will provide information on the superintendent and board’s role in developing the plan, as well as the role of the various stakeholders that make up the planning team and the action teams. Gathering and utilizing stakeholder feedback is very critical to this process. Another focus of this course is when the plan is completed, it is critical the board and superintendent ensure that it is implemented.

This course will focus on the changing role of today’s leadership team. Topics will include: changes in the way we educate today’s young people, teaching skills students need, raising expectations, and focusing on the government learning environment in which today’s students are growing up.

Leadership strategies for managing ambiguity, conflict, and uncertainty. Board members will explore the science behind making effective decisions in the course of their role on the Governance Team.

This course is an overview of major focus areas of school boards. The topics include: high-performing governance teams, strategic planning, accountability, building community support, and aligning budget and resources.