6) PARTNER WITH THE CITY!

The Lancaster Independent School District and City of Lancaster have common interests in developing neighborhoods, streets, sidewalks and parks.

However, the shared goals and objectives have not resulted in shared committees to plan or encourage such development. Each is operating independently, or at best in private, undocumented, meetings between the city manager and school superintendent. Instead, the board president and the council's mayor should appoint formal committees who will jointly study community issues. The committees will present recommendations to both governing bodies. In public. If approved these strategic plans and policies then become a shared background as particular issues arise, and are perhaps negotiated, in the course of normal business.

Sidewalks? How will they support children walking to and from school? Drainage? Can a neighborhood and school share a detention feature? Utilities? Do the city codes on underground lines make sense for a school site?

Cooperation can make both entities more productive.

5) USE PRE-PAID SERVICES!

The Lancaster school board must choose free (or pre-paid) services, when available, rather than buying new additional service.

In particular, the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) offers free services, including general legal advice, to member boards. It is a waste of money and time to direct routine procedural questions to the lawyers on retainer. (It's better than guessing about legal matters -- and guessing wrong. But free good advice is cheaper than free BAD advice.) Similarly the Education Service Center in Richardson ("Region Ten") is taxpayer supported and offers many of the services now solicitied by bid to commercial agencies. It must become the policy and practice of the Lancaster board to exhaust use of free and already contracted support before seeking expensive new help.

Or I think so, anyway. What do you think?

4) TRANSCRIBE CLOSED MEETINGS!

Audiotape board executive sessions, transcribe the discussion, and archive the records as directed by law.

Executive sessions now last too long and too little is accomplished. Much of the delay and inefficiency arises from trustees disputing what been previously discussed. A record of established agreements will help trustees avoid re-fighting old battles and carrying on historic grudges. The school district's legal advisors admit such recordings are legal, although there may be some legal risk, in a lawsuit, to having recordings subject to "discovery". In practice the risk of public embarrassment should lead to more efficient, professional, conduct by all trustees during these closed sessions.

http://www.oag.state.tx.us/AG_Publications/pdfs/publicinfo_hb.pdf

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@JM4LISD

We could have a short chat. How to improve the school district -- Your Ideas?

3) FOLLOW UP!

Establish as board policy and standard procedure that all "ACTION" items approved by the board be assigned a "follow up" date within one year.

Too often a new program is pitched to the board, approved, and financially supported -- never to be mentioned again. A scheduled appointment for reporting results will help ensure those results.

Along those lines -- a year-long organizing calendar, showing all the upcoming items the board intends to discuss. Don't let deadlines like the budget or the public hearings sneak up and bite the board by surprise.

Another day, another proposal.

Note that these are proposals that any board member could have proposed. Could have brought an idea to a vote, at least (if not passed.) The question is not whether these are great ideas. The question is, why hasn't a trustee managed to try.

Politicians often promise "leadership". Right now, I'd settle for decent management.

What TEA would cut

from Texas school programs:Here are some of the $135.5 million in cuts the Texas Education Agency has proposed for fiscal 2011:

Texas High School Initiative programs: $15 million

Teacher Mentoring Program: $16.6 million

Middle school physical education and fitness: $10 million

Science Lab Grant Program: $25 million

Textbooks and kindergarten materials: $10 million

Life Skills Program for Student Parents: $10.1 million

TEA administration: $5 million

Texas Principal Leadership Program: $4.4 million

Source: Texas Education Agency

All districts are going to have to comb thru their budgets with a very sharp eye. Do you suppose our current board is up to the job?

2) QUARTERLY REPORTING!

Another proposal for making the Lancaster School board more effective -- and more directly engaged with the people who CAN help the schools: the campus improvement committees.

Schedule quarterly status reports by campus committees directly to the board.

State law directs principals and superintendents to work with teachers, parents, and community leaders to form "campus improvement committees". These committes now submit annual "campus improvement plans" to the board -- which are filed and forgotten. A routine, scheduled presentation to the board on the progress of the campus toward specific goals will ensure admin effort and funding are directed toward those goals.

Now, the board should NOT attempt to have all eight campus committees present at the same time. The Annual end-of-year report, on the entire district, counts as one -- but that leaves 3 interim quarterly reports per campus. Three reports for 8 campuses means 24 reports - over 12 months is two such reports per meeting. The natural competition between the campuses to have something good to say -- to outshine the others -- will also drive improvements.

You get what you measure. Let's measure frequent IMPROVEMENTS.

1) MEET 2nd MONDAYS!

Re-schedule regular meetings for the 2nd Monday, instead of 1st Monday.

The finance office consistantly struggles to reconcile district books to bank statements. But the trustees have limited visibility into the problem --because their monthly meeting is over before the statements arrive. Shifting back by just one week puts reconciliation and financial reporting periods three weeks AHEAD of present practice, and allows the board to react more quickly to problems.