Called to Serve

This May, we honor the dedication of our school board members. The work they do oftentimes goes unnoticed, but the impact they have on our school district is enormous. There is no mistaking the fact it takes quite a sacrifice to serve on this body. While we are blessed to be largely drama free, from time to time a difficult issue lands on the table. That is when the phone calls come. The emails. The confrontation at a meeting. I am grateful our board members are able to handle even the toughest issues with grace, professionalism, empathy, and tremendous poise. We have an outstanding school board here in Hudson. Where some school boards are composed of individuals who harbor personal agendas or vendettas, that is not the case here. Those who serve on our school board do so out of a sense of service to their community. They genuinely want to help. They want Hudson to be the best school district in the state. 

The work that all of us do in schools, regardless of the role, is almost always future oriented. In the case of our teachers, the hard work put in with students today may not be realized for a decade or more down the road. The same holds true for those who serve on the school board. Truthfully, it is no stretch of the imagination to state the decisions made by the Board of Directors are often generational. 

May offers a unique opportunity to pull back the curtain and recognize the dedicated individuals shaping the future of our district. While teachers are the heart of the classroom, the school board members are the navigators steering the entire ship. Their vision provides a framework that allows our educators to thrive, and our students to succeed. From studying the intricacies of special education policy and caseload analysis to considering staffing ratios, we owe a debt of gratitude to these volunteers who balance budgets, set policies, and champion the needs of every child.

When most folks think about the school board, they likely think about the meeting that happens once or twice a month. It may be easy to overlook the work they do-mostly because it is done in the evening; meetings that can run late into the night while contemplating thick budget reports or heady and complex policy discussions. But I can promise you, the work that goes into serving on the school board is a much greater time commitment than a couple hours a month!

Perhaps you glance over the agenda and read the minutes in the newspaper. Maybe from time to time you look over the monthly bills with passing interest. If that is the extent of your working knowledge of a school board, it is totally understandable. However, it merely scratches the surface of the work they do. The impact of the school board is felt by every student, parent, and educator in the district.  

Discernment toward serving, at least here in Hudson generally includes a stop here in my office. Would be candidates have a lot of questions, notwithstanding the logistics and mechanics of board operations. In our pre-service workshops, we spend time getting into the weeds of what to expect if they run and ultimately are elected. We begin with an overview of what they already know-usually of those topics that have been mentioned. I am quick to underscore that what they read in the paper may make it sound easy, but the homework in advance of the meeting is very time consuming. I warn them of the email or phone call from the superintendent briefing on an 'unusual' event in one of the schools; the angry phone call from a parent when their child wasn't selected for a role in the play. 

Indeed, the concepts can be dense and an agenda can include multiple exhibits with artifacts that can easily run a couple of hundred pages. Yes, the meeting is where the decisions are made. But I can promise you that the run up to the final decision is often months in the making. It includes discussion at the board table, requests for additional information, consideration of alternatives, and sometimes outside expertise. By the time a resolution is called up for a vote, it is pretty anti-climatic. Take for example our budget. When the board took final action on the budget resolution it was merely a board member making a motion for consideration that was subsequently seconded. A vote was called and the resolution adopted. This whole evolution was over in moments. Yet the lead up to that vote was months in the making. In fact, you can trace the roots of our budget work back to early November. 

While mechanically, the meeting is where the work gets done, it merely is the vehicle in which to do that work. You see, the role of the school board is governance of the school district. They set the vision for the district and establish long-term goals for student achievement and district growth. This includes setting policies dealing with curriculum standards, safety protocols, and even determining how many credits are required in order to graduate from high school. As mentioned above, the board recently completed their most important task of a school year: setting the annual budget. A total budget for fiscal year 2027 that is expected to top $16.7 million. A huge responsibility indeed! Once the board has set that vision, adopted the policy, and certified the budget-they have in essence given me my marching orders: to execute on those directives. 

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about school board members is that they are locally elected volunteers. That's right, they are not being paid. In fact, service on the school board is the only elected office in Iowa that does not come with some sort of compensation. They are our neighbors, business owners, and parents who choose to spend their free time tackling some of the toughest challenges we face in education. They engage in heated debates, make difficult decisions about resources, and act as a bridge between the community and the classroom. 

When it come to governmental service, there is perhaps no greater impact to what happens in your day to day life than what happens at the local level. Healthy schools create healthy communities. This month, let's take a moment to honor those who have give their time in service to sit in those board chairs. Their commitment to our children's education is a commitment to the future for us all.