February 7, 2025 • 27 mins
Due to the amount of recent new board members, we wanted to relaunch the following podcast to help navigate this time as a new board member. During this podcast episode, Candy Morgan, Former TSBA President (Maryville); Keys Fillauer, Former TSBA President (Oak Ridge); Dr. Dale Viox, Former TSBA President (Arlington); and Marty Burlison (Tipton County) welcome all new school board members and share words of advice when navigating the first few years of service on the Board.
Click here if you wish to read the transcript of today’s podcast episode.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
Hi everyone and welcome back to TSBA, youreducation source, the podcast. I am Jenna and
today we are going to be talking about tips for ournew school board members. So this year we have
about 200 new school board members, which happensevery few years. And so we thought that this
episode we could dedicate two little tips andtricks for our new school board members because
(00:32):
there's a lot of stuff going on and you're learninga lot of stuff. And so I have brought in some
veterans to talk to you all about some tips andtricks that they recommend for you on your first
year and then also what to do for the next comingyears. So we've got Keith Svalauer here. He is the
2022 TSBA president and he's also the Oak Ridgeboard chair, Ms. Candy Morgan. She is our 2022 TSBA
(01:00):
president-elect and she is from the Maryvilleschool board and then Dr. Dale Vioxx, he is 2022
TSBA vice president and he is an Arlington schoolboard member. And then last but not least, you're
the chair? I am now. Well, okay, excuse me. As oflast week. As of last week. As of two days ago, Dr.
(01:22):
Dale Vioxx is the Arlington board chair and thenlast but not least, we've got Marty Burleson. He is
the TSBA treasurer this year and he is the boardchair for, I'm sorry, yeah, he is the board chair
for Tupac County. Dale, you've got me all thrownoff here. I'll shut up. It may not be the last time
I'm wondering this podcast. I'm just not going totalk anymore. Oh no, I need your talking here. So we
(01:46):
do have a big talkative bunch here today. So this isgoing to be a fun episode with a lot of information.
Maybe some of it's accurate. Maybe some of it'snot. I'm just kidding. So thank you all so much for
being here. Y'all say hello to our podcastlisteners out there. Hello everybody. Hi
everyone. Hello. Hello everyone. Okay, good. Sofor our new school board members who have recently
(02:10):
been sworn in, what can they expect during theirtime on the school board this year? First year
jitters and that type of thing? I've got actuallyone of ours is brand new and we knew he was going to
run so we prepped him a little bit. But we just gotsworn in Tuesday. So prior to that he came to the
fall district meeting and he was absolutelyoverwhelmed. Oh yeah. So it was a great thing for
(02:33):
him to experience that he was overwhelmed. Hishead was spinning. There's so much information at
fall district meeting and all the legislativestuff. One thing that we did when we were formed
nine years ago is we made a customs and proceduresmanual and then I sort of wrote this little essay
about what school board members do becausethere's a lot of misconception about what our job
(02:54):
really is and consequently how important it is. Sohe had all that information. I think a lot of people
come in with this agenda like oh I'm going to mentalhealth is going to be my thing and you realize that
the district is really already sort of handlingthat and that's the quickest way by the way is make a
suggestion you get put on a committee for your newpeople. It's just a warning. You make a suggestion
(03:19):
you're going to be on the committee. Word to thewise. But I think they really expect to be
overwhelmed until you can really dig in andeducate yourself on what we do and how important it
is and how regulated it is to you. I think you'regoing to be overwhelmed. Period. Yeah what's the
(03:40):
old saying you feel like you're drinking waterthrough a fire hose. I mean that's really how you
feel and so that's normal. You know we were alloverwhelmed in that position but just trying to
learn a little bit. Don't expect to learn it allyour first year. Just learn a little bit at a time
because you know the budget is a majorundertaking. So take that on and learn that learn
(04:04):
where your revenue sources are what you cancontrol you know federal money what the you know
what your handcuffs are on that so it's just it'sthings like that just learn it a little bit at a time
don't try to soak it all in and then move on to thenext thing because you know we're advocates for at
the state level for our district children and sothen take that on you know learn all you can about
(04:25):
the bills that are coming up. That's smart. We havefour of you board members on our board and I agree
with Candy about the overwhelming of the budget.The budget is hard to understand and I don't care
how long you serve on the board the budget is thehardest and it will overwhelm you and also that
they're going to be overwhelmed with things thatthey think they can do that they can't do. I mean you
(04:48):
have policies any problem you have you will have apolicy to go on. If you have a problem and you don't
have a policy you need to get one. Right. More onmost cases and it'll get better as time goes and
they'll understand that they feel morecomfortable. We had our first board meeting this
month and everything went fine. All our board theywere making you know motions and they fit right in
(05:09):
and I think they're going to be fine. I thinkthey're going to be good board members. Good. I'm
glad to hear that. I think you got to come preparedto listen. You got to come prepared to ask
questions and piggyback on something Dale saidprior to running or prior to election day I would
encourage if you are a person running contact aboard member and ask that board member what is this
(05:35):
about you know don't go in blinded by somethingbecause there's going to be enough to blind you
when you get elected and we try and we haven't had anew board member elected in a while in Oak Ridge.
Ours had been reelected but when we have we'veassigned a board member who has been on the board
(06:00):
for a period of time to work with that new boardmember to be the one if you've got a question this is
the person you need to contact. Oh that's smart.You need to call. I have my old peer or mentor. Ask
what do I need to do or what should I be doing to justkind of help that process a lot. Okay I love that. So
focus on budget maybe get us a mentor make sure youask questions if you have an agenda I think your
(06:26):
agenda is going to probably be squashed when yourealize every all of the policies and rules and
regulations that you have to follow it's not aneasy job at all and so I think that's what I've
gathered right. It has a high learning curve. YeahI want to piggyback off of one thing he says I think
probably the golden rule school board member Idon't care how passionate you are about a subject
(06:50):
you never ever ever surprise your board chair oryour superintendent during a meeting. Don't do
that. If it's not on the agenda do not surprisethem. Do not talk to them. I don't care how much you
care about it you go through the channels. That'svery true. You should probably agree. And with
that being said you do always have the opportunityto request agenda items prior to a meeting and you
(07:15):
do get the agenda before a meeting is published. Soif there is a time where you do want to throw
something in there it's then not during themeeting and the superintendent is available to
you 24 7 I think in every district so you have lots ofpathways. Well I feel like we've kind of like
touched on this a little bit but this is my nextquestion so that means I have to ask it right. What
(07:37):
words of advice would you give your new boardmembers and maybe let's talk more about like the
relationships that you want to have to build withyour other board members your superintendent as
well as the community and maybe other schooldistricts and their board members. Not
everybody's go at once. I started last time but I'mgoing to say the most important relationship is
(08:01):
your relationship with your superintendent. Mynew ship behind that would be your other board
members. You guys absolutely have to get along.You have to be able to communicate or that
dysfunctional come through every time you sit upthere. There's no way to hide it but the most
important relationship is your board andsuperintendent you have to have lots of
communication. I'm a huge proponent of communityoutreach because we've got a lot of businesses in
(08:24):
our district I know Kees and Keeney do. I'm not suremuch about Morty's district and so our outreach
being visible and getting business partnershipsto generate a lot of opportunities for our
students. I don't think that should be ignored butas a new board member you sort of find your passion
and fit in either A where the board chair tells youto fit in or B where it's convenient for you to fit in
(08:46):
and promote as you can. I think two things to answerthe question how many board members does it take
for the board to become dysfunctional? The answeris one. One. It doesn't matter how many people are
on your board it's one. So the importance ofdeveloping that relationship and a second thing
(09:06):
within the relationship I think it's importantfor a new board member to understand and we
mentioned this earlier that thesuperintendent's door should be open to a board
member at any time and that new board member needsto understand that the board is not running the
school. The superintendent does that and that'swhy you hired the superintendent. Your job is to
(09:33):
maintain and follow policy and make sure thesuperintendent's doing that. If you think you're
running the school and that's why you got electedyou are in for a sudden awakening that won't be very
pleasant. They got hired for the wrong job. That'sgood. And they are that dysfunctional board
member at that point. Yes. Right. And I think it'simportant that you have an open mind and you listen
(09:57):
to your superintendent because that is the personthat has been elected to run your district. He or
she knows your district the best. However, thatdoes not mean that you don't need to do your own
homework. You can get into the schools. You can askif this is something that you are have a vote on
that's going to affect the teachers in a large way.Talk to your teachers. I mean there are the boots on
(10:19):
the ground every single day. You can go back to yoursuperintendent but at the end of the day the
superintendent doesn't know what's best for thedistrict. So just have an open mind with that.
Other board members I think it's important thatyou are also open minded with them. You might not
always agree but understand that your job is to dowhat is best for the greater of that school
(10:41):
district. Well I think to piggyback on what yousaid the superintendent has a level of detail that
you don't have access to. So if you have a questionyou ask them first and they will give you ad nauseam
detail. Yes. Absolutely. I think too it'simportant to establish what the lines of
communication are how for example if you're aboard member and someone calls you what do you do
(11:05):
next. You don't make the decision well we're goingto do this. You either need to say you need to
contact the superintendent or I'll contact thesuperintendent and have the superintendent
contact you or whoever the person should be. Youbreak those lines of communication that's going
to get you in trouble too. I think transparency hasa lot of weight on this. You have to be transparent
(11:29):
everything you do. Also a parent might call about abus problem. I don't go to the bus driver. I tell the
parent call your principal. The principal runsthat school run for your child attends and that
doesn't work the principal will go to thesuperintendent and if it's not resolved let me
know and I'll get the superintendent involved.But like Keyes said there is a line of
(11:52):
communication and it's not always thesuperintendent. I always like my principal first
at that school and put those folks in contact withthat principal. They call you know put them in the
right direction because if the superintendenttakes every call that a board member gets he
doesn't have time. No. You know you have to take thechain of command all the way from the bottom to the
(12:13):
top. His job would basically be turning into a callcenter. So it's like saying... It's not what we
paid them for. Have you talked to the teacher?Exactly. Well have you talked to the... No. I just
wanted to go to the top first. That's not the way youdo it. I mean you don't do that at a Fortune 500
(12:33):
company. You don't go immediately to the CEO whenyou have a problem. No. You start and then you just
kind of build up from there. Just like any othercompany run organization that type of thing. I
heard a great saying last night that somebody wasbeing funny and they said I want to talk to the
person that can fire you. That is not the way to getit done folks. Teacher, principal,
(12:56):
superintendent, then board. I would give them the1-800-GET-LOSS number. I'm not going to say but
the person who took the phone was sitting in thisroom. It was a total different situation. Oh I see
what it is here. Yeah exactly. I always saidsomebody under the bus. I love that. I'm going to
use it. It was awesome. So what are some things thaty'all have discovered during your time as a board
(13:21):
member that you would have never expected yourfirst year in the position as a school board
member? Oh this should be good. I like thisquestion a lot. I started off. I was elected in 1985
in my first term and it was a lot different back inthose days. I know I'm dated on this but it was a lot
(13:41):
different. People had their own agendas. We had alot of consolidation in schools and we were
building schools and each community wanted aschool. And that was one of my biggest obstacles to
overcome. People called and they were getting madat you. It was awful. I mean it was kind of a bad time
to start. Man, you lasted. Well, I had a littlebreak in between there. I had an eight year break. I
(14:07):
need some sleep. So give me a couple of years.Exactly, I had to take a break. But that was one of my
remembrances of my first time around. What aboutthe rest of y'all? Parents are very passionate.
Yeah. And like even down to what is served to theirchild at the lunch table and they will come to you
(14:28):
about anything. And that was very surprising to methat, you know, wow, I'm getting calls on just
ridiculous. The cookies are too soft. Yes. Yeah.Or they're not, you know, serving the cheesy bread
anymore or the brand of the milk. No. Well, really,you got those? Oh, yes. So that was a little
(14:50):
surprising. So but it does give you an opportunityto talk to that parent and kind of educate them a
little bit about what your real job is. But I wasreally shocked about things like that. For me,
personally, the first thing I learned is Icouldn't go to the grocery store anymore. But
because we started a brand new district. And soit's all brand new. And there was a million
(15:11):
questions and we were working 100 hour weeks forseven months getting this thing up and running.
And I couldn't go to the grocery store. It wouldtake me hours. Wow. And so, hey, that's a win
because I don't have to go to the grocery storeanymore. Poor Dale. Nine years in, I'm still
shocked by the thing I get calls about. Now, one ofmy sons, he's 14, so he's in ninth grade. He
(15:35):
informed me the other day that the dividers in themen's bathroom are not tall enough because if
you're five foot five, you can still look over andsee the guy next to you. So I learned that as well. So
it's always interesting. You never know whatsomebody's going to ask you. But I think key's
point is the most important. When somebody callsyou on it, those are funny things, obviously, but
(15:59):
on a serious issue, especially like a SPED issue orsome transition specialist issue, anything like
that, you absolutely just don't answer for theboard. Right. You don't answer for the board.
Right. You get this to the person that can fix theproblem or can address the problem. You don't take
that problem on yourself because inevitablythey're going to hear one tiny thing that you said
(16:21):
and they're going to say, well, board member saidthis. And they'll bring it up. That person will
come to the board meeting and bring it up duringpublic comment. And then it'll blindside all of
the other board members. And I will tell you nowthat a lot of these parents, and I don't want to
sound paranoid, but they record everything yousay. So you just. I'm recording you right now.
(16:42):
Right. Just don't tread out to the deep waters.Especially as a new board member that is so far
outside your purview. Just be careful. And it'sokay to say, I don't know. I can get back to you. Yes.
Or even let me get in touch with the person you canfix this problem. Because I'm not a problem. Yeah.
(17:04):
I think too, as a new board member, it could becomevery easy to let the negative overshadow the
positive. There's much more positive in publiceducation than there is negative. But if you dwell
on those negative things, it's obviously veryeasy to let that overwhelm you and forget about all
(17:27):
the good things that are going on. But keys,negativity is what sells media in news. We're
supposed to focus on the negativity, right?Otherwise, what are we going to talk about? I
didn't say it was easy. We don't want to talk aboutthe good things. Well, I want to mention one of
these things because like we, every year we do ahuge district kickoff thing and the teachers are
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freshly back from summer and the energy isamazing. And it's truly the most exciting time as a
board member, other than that time in May when youstand across the stage and you watch all those
graduates and you hear they got $43 million inscholarships and you see your service Academy
students stand up. Like it makes everything else.Just what you give pales in comparison to what you
(18:14):
receive. It's almost like at the end of the year,you get the refresh that you needed to start the new
school year. It's the most amazing thing to seethose kids out there and it makes it worth it.
Absolutely. Plus I don't have to go to the grocerystore. So wait, how do you get your groceries? It's
like everything in my house. When I take the lastprotein bar out of the box, it magically
(18:37):
reappears. Oh, you have a fairy. It's a fairy. It'sa fairy. It magically reappears. I gotta give me
one of those. I don't know how. My house is magical.Wow. That is called an awesome wife. It's
possible. That's a podcast episode for anotherday. Exactly. For our new school board members,
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well actually as well as our veteran school boardmembers included how are the services provided by
TSBA beneficial for y'all when serving on theboard? Of course I gotta get my TSBA plug in there.
So how can we help y'all be good? A new board memberneeds to take advantage of lots of training that
TSBA has. They need to go to the new board memberorientation. New chairman needs to go to the
(19:22):
chairman workshop and do all the classes that youcan with TSBA. TSBA has a wealth of information and
we couldn't survive without them. That is so true.Y'all could. 100% Absolutely. I am glad that you
said that about the orientation becauseorientation for a new school board member is
required by the state and TSBA provides thatorientation for free. It's really, really good.
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It's very informative and it kind of brings lightand it's almost like a nice little synopsis of what
you can expect your first year as a school boardmember. So I highly, highly recommend y'all
coming in to do that. But yeah, what else do we offery'all that is just beneficial and y'all can't live
without legal advice? Absolutely. The policydepartment is great. You have a problem and you
(20:12):
have TSBA who writes the policy and it's legal withour TSBA attorneys and a school board's operate
all the policies. It's just the bottom line andTSBA provides those policies with input from the
school for superintendents and the board's teamto work out the problems and have a policy for
everyone. Those policies, they can be tricky.Yes. And what a lot of school districts find is that
(20:37):
they'll have a lot of policies and then in chapterone, that says one thing and then chapter 10, it's
like a discrepancy and they don't make sense andthen that's where you get yourself in trouble. So
TSBA, we do have a policy department where it issolely focused on finding those errors and making
sure that your policy is clear and you'recompletely covered and you are, you're able to
(21:00):
function and make decisions based on thosepolicies put into place. And as a board, if the time
comes where you are looking for a newsuperintendent, then TSBA provides the service
of a superintendent's search, which makes it a loteasier for the board to go through the process and
(21:21):
to find the person that they feel would best leadtheir district. Yes. We do community forums
whenever we do the superintendent searches fory'all. It's a nationwide search and so we're not
just looking locally, but we're lookingnationwide. You can specify. Exactly. Where you
want regional or national service. You can tell uswhat you're looking for. We also let the community
(21:41):
come in and recommend people that we can go in andconsider and recruit for. So yeah, I mean, it's
definitely a community based superintendentsearch. And then we provide those candidates to
the board and then they, we usually give them thetop three. And if they want it, the board can ask for
all of the candidates and whatever. But weusually, that's typically how it works. To me, the
(22:06):
answer to this question is the easiest. There is nofacet of running your school district that TSBA
cannot help you. Absolutely. There's just not.Like we talked about some of them, but there's OPEP
trust. There's strategic planning. There is nofacet of running your district that they cannot
help you with in some regard. Not everybody hasin-house counsel. So the policy thing is huge. You
(22:30):
may have a legal question. They are directlyaligned to Tennessee Department of Education.
They help with federal advocacy. Justeverything. We have VOE Connect. VOE Connect,
which is amazing for your meeting. Keeps you righton track. And if you hit the follow button, you
don't need to do anything. Your secretary justruns it. It's amazing. And it keeps you on track and
(22:53):
keeps you going. I'm a little partial to VOEConnect because I am the VOE Connect consultant.
It's an amazing program. And I love that program.So for those of you all that don't know what it is, it
is an online meeting platform for your schoolboard to be able to use to conduct your monthly
meetings. You can also do your committeemeetings. You can do closed session meetings,
special called meetings, emergency meetings,everything. And it's all electronic and it
(23:16):
streamlines everything. It makes it available tothe public. It has your agendas and your minutes
report. And your votes. And your votes. You takeactions in there. You add in your discussions. It
auto-generates your minutes reports. You don'tjust holler at me if you want to learn any more about
the VOE Connect. Well, I think the most importantthing you guys do is the board'smanship program.
We didn't talk about that. Because as a new boardmember or a veteran board member that hasn't
(23:40):
advanced their board membership position,you're doing a disservice to your district and to
your students. Because the more you know, the moreyou know. We actually recently recorded a podcast
with keys talking specifically about theboard'smanship program. So I highly recommend
all going back and listening to that episode aswell. It's the most valuable thing you can offer
(24:02):
your district as a board member is to advance thatposition. Absolutely. And that's what you're
elected to do is to be an advocate. So you've got tolearn in order to be an advocate for your district.
One other area that is important to us as boardmembers, new board members, old board members as a
service through TSBA is the leadership from TSBAthrough the legislature to try to keep us on track
(24:31):
with pending legislation, knowing what'shappening, what's coming down the pike, what we
may be faced with. And certainly that is doneexceptionally I think through TSBA. Well, I'm not
going to interpret that because some of the stuffyou don't even need to figure out. Well, Emily
Warren, she is our director of governmentrelations here at TSBA and her and Ben Torres, they
(24:56):
are up on the hill basically every single day.Learning about new things, pushing for things to
get past that support public education and thattype of thing. So yeah, we're very passionate
about that and at fall district meetings and at ourannual convention at the Delegate Assembly,
that's when our few rare times that we get all of ourschool districts together where you can vote on
(25:17):
legislative agendas, voting in on things, askingfor TSBA to go in and lobby for certain things for
public education. So we do provide thoseopportunities for our statewide recognition, I
guess, basically in that type of thing. I'll plugthat to the convention last year. I don't know if it
was just the best one ever or if everybody couldn'twait to get back together. I think it's a little bit
(25:42):
of both. That convention last year, if you didn'tknow, shame on you. It was amazing. I think it was
the best one we've ever had. Really? Oh, that's sogood to hear. Well, that was everything that I
wanted to ask you all. Was there anything that youall wanted to add to our new school board members,
something you feel like we didn't get to discuss,something you really want to make sure that you get
(26:03):
across to them? Remember rule number one, do notsurprise your superintendent or board chair
during a meeting. Never. Rule number one, never.And big patient. At the end of the day, it's all
about the children. That's the role of a schoolboard member. It's about the children what's best
for them. Absolutely. And if you think beingelected, you were only going to have to attend one
(26:24):
meeting a month and that was it. There's a lot morebeing involved. My own board. Do the work. Do the
work. Do the work. Do the work. And not only yourpoint, but that is the number one thing. Don't ever
surprise them. Come to board meetings prepared.Prepared. Yes. Come prepared. That is your job.
Yeah. You all seem like you'll have someexperience in all of this. But I think most of us
(26:47):
have been on board a long time. Yeah. Well, I can'tbelieve it, but we are getting done with this
podcast and within 30 minutes with five talkers.We all need to give ourselves a round of applause.
Yeah. On the back. All right. Well, thank youeverybody for tuning into this month's podcast.
We will see you all next time. Thanks for joining ustoday. Whether you're driving to work or on your
(27:11):
back porch enjoying your morning coffee, we hopeyou enjoyed this dive into public education. For
future episodes, subscribe to our podcast bygoing to iTunes and search for TSBA, your
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any questions about today's discussion, pleasefeel free to reach out to us at podcast at tsba.net.
(27:36):
Also, please rate this episode to let us know howwe're doing and tell us what topics you want to hear 277 00:27:41,580 --> about. Thanks again for listening. We hope you join us next time on TSBA, your education source.
Hi everyone and welcome back to TSBA, youreducation source, the podcast. I am Jenna and
today we are going to be talking about tips for ournew school board members. So this year we have
about 200 new school board members, which happensevery few years. And so we thought that this
episode we could dedicate two little tips andtricks for our new school board members because
(00:32):
there's a lot of stuff going on and you're learninga lot of stuff. And so I have brought in some
veterans to talk to you all about some tips andtricks that they recommend for you on your first
year and then also what to do for the next comingyears. So we've got Keith Svalauer here. He is the
2022 TSBA president and he's also the Oak Ridgeboard chair, Ms. Candy Morgan. She is our 2022 TSBA
(01:00):
president-elect and she is from the Maryvilleschool board and then Dr. Dale Vioxx, he is 2022
TSBA vice president and he is an Arlington schoolboard member. And then last but not least, you're
the chair? I am now. Well, okay, excuse me. As oflast week. As of last week. As of two days ago, Dr.
(01:22):
Dale Vioxx is the Arlington board chair and thenlast but not least, we've got Marty Burleson. He is
the TSBA treasurer this year and he is the boardchair for, I'm sorry, yeah, he is the board chair
for Tupac County. Dale, you've got me all thrownoff here. I'll shut up. It may not be the last time
I'm wondering this podcast. I'm just not going totalk anymore. Oh no, I need your talking here. So we
(01:46):
do have a big talkative bunch here today. So this isgoing to be a fun episode with a lot of information.
Maybe some of it's accurate. Maybe some of it'snot. I'm just kidding. So thank you all so much for
being here. Y'all say hello to our podcastlisteners out there. Hello everybody. Hi
everyone. Hello. Hello everyone. Okay, good. Sofor our new school board members who have recently
(02:10):
been sworn in, what can they expect during theirtime on the school board this year? First year
jitters and that type of thing? I've got actuallyone of ours is brand new and we knew he was going to
run so we prepped him a little bit. But we just gotsworn in Tuesday. So prior to that he came to the
fall district meeting and he was absolutelyoverwhelmed. Oh yeah. So it was a great thing for
(02:33):
him to experience that he was overwhelmed. Hishead was spinning. There's so much information at
fall district meeting and all the legislativestuff. One thing that we did when we were formed
nine years ago is we made a customs and proceduresmanual and then I sort of wrote this little essay
about what school board members do becausethere's a lot of misconception about what our job
(02:54):
really is and consequently how important it is. Sohe had all that information. I think a lot of people
come in with this agenda like oh I'm going to mentalhealth is going to be my thing and you realize that
the district is really already sort of handlingthat and that's the quickest way by the way is make a
suggestion you get put on a committee for your newpeople. It's just a warning. You make a suggestion
(03:19):
you're going to be on the committee. Word to thewise. But I think they really expect to be
overwhelmed until you can really dig in andeducate yourself on what we do and how important it
is and how regulated it is to you. I think you'regoing to be overwhelmed. Period. Yeah what's the
(03:40):
old saying you feel like you're drinking waterthrough a fire hose. I mean that's really how you
feel and so that's normal. You know we were alloverwhelmed in that position but just trying to
learn a little bit. Don't expect to learn it allyour first year. Just learn a little bit at a time
because you know the budget is a majorundertaking. So take that on and learn that learn
(04:04):
where your revenue sources are what you cancontrol you know federal money what the you know
what your handcuffs are on that so it's just it'sthings like that just learn it a little bit at a time
don't try to soak it all in and then move on to thenext thing because you know we're advocates for at
the state level for our district children and sothen take that on you know learn all you can about
(04:25):
the bills that are coming up. That's smart. We havefour of you board members on our board and I agree
with Candy about the overwhelming of the budget.The budget is hard to understand and I don't care
how long you serve on the board the budget is thehardest and it will overwhelm you and also that
they're going to be overwhelmed with things thatthey think they can do that they can't do. I mean you
(04:48):
have policies any problem you have you will have apolicy to go on. If you have a problem and you don't
have a policy you need to get one. Right. More onmost cases and it'll get better as time goes and
they'll understand that they feel morecomfortable. We had our first board meeting this
month and everything went fine. All our board theywere making you know motions and they fit right in
(05:09):
and I think they're going to be fine. I thinkthey're going to be good board members. Good. I'm
glad to hear that. I think you got to come preparedto listen. You got to come prepared to ask
questions and piggyback on something Dale saidprior to running or prior to election day I would
encourage if you are a person running contact aboard member and ask that board member what is this
(05:35):
about you know don't go in blinded by somethingbecause there's going to be enough to blind you
when you get elected and we try and we haven't had anew board member elected in a while in Oak Ridge.
Ours had been reelected but when we have we'veassigned a board member who has been on the board
(06:00):
for a period of time to work with that new boardmember to be the one if you've got a question this is
the person you need to contact. Oh that's smart.You need to call. I have my old peer or mentor. Ask
what do I need to do or what should I be doing to justkind of help that process a lot. Okay I love that. So
focus on budget maybe get us a mentor make sure youask questions if you have an agenda I think your
(06:26):
agenda is going to probably be squashed when yourealize every all of the policies and rules and
regulations that you have to follow it's not aneasy job at all and so I think that's what I've
gathered right. It has a high learning curve. YeahI want to piggyback off of one thing he says I think
probably the golden rule school board member Idon't care how passionate you are about a subject
(06:50):
you never ever ever surprise your board chair oryour superintendent during a meeting. Don't do
that. If it's not on the agenda do not surprisethem. Do not talk to them. I don't care how much you
care about it you go through the channels. That'svery true. You should probably agree. And with
that being said you do always have the opportunityto request agenda items prior to a meeting and you
(07:15):
do get the agenda before a meeting is published. Soif there is a time where you do want to throw
something in there it's then not during themeeting and the superintendent is available to
you 24 7 I think in every district so you have lots ofpathways. Well I feel like we've kind of like
touched on this a little bit but this is my nextquestion so that means I have to ask it right. What
(07:37):
words of advice would you give your new boardmembers and maybe let's talk more about like the
relationships that you want to have to build withyour other board members your superintendent as
well as the community and maybe other schooldistricts and their board members. Not
everybody's go at once. I started last time but I'mgoing to say the most important relationship is
(08:01):
your relationship with your superintendent. Mynew ship behind that would be your other board
members. You guys absolutely have to get along.You have to be able to communicate or that
dysfunctional come through every time you sit upthere. There's no way to hide it but the most
important relationship is your board andsuperintendent you have to have lots of
communication. I'm a huge proponent of communityoutreach because we've got a lot of businesses in
(08:24):
our district I know Kees and Keeney do. I'm not suremuch about Morty's district and so our outreach
being visible and getting business partnershipsto generate a lot of opportunities for our
students. I don't think that should be ignored butas a new board member you sort of find your passion
and fit in either A where the board chair tells youto fit in or B where it's convenient for you to fit in
(08:46):
and promote as you can. I think two things to answerthe question how many board members does it take
for the board to become dysfunctional? The answeris one. One. It doesn't matter how many people are
on your board it's one. So the importance ofdeveloping that relationship and a second thing
(09:06):
within the relationship I think it's importantfor a new board member to understand and we
mentioned this earlier that thesuperintendent's door should be open to a board
member at any time and that new board member needsto understand that the board is not running the
school. The superintendent does that and that'swhy you hired the superintendent. Your job is to
(09:33):
maintain and follow policy and make sure thesuperintendent's doing that. If you think you're
running the school and that's why you got electedyou are in for a sudden awakening that won't be very
pleasant. They got hired for the wrong job. That'sgood. And they are that dysfunctional board
member at that point. Yes. Right. And I think it'simportant that you have an open mind and you listen
(09:57):
to your superintendent because that is the personthat has been elected to run your district. He or
she knows your district the best. However, thatdoes not mean that you don't need to do your own
homework. You can get into the schools. You can askif this is something that you are have a vote on
that's going to affect the teachers in a large way.Talk to your teachers. I mean there are the boots on
(10:19):
the ground every single day. You can go back to yoursuperintendent but at the end of the day the
superintendent doesn't know what's best for thedistrict. So just have an open mind with that.
Other board members I think it's important thatyou are also open minded with them. You might not
always agree but understand that your job is to dowhat is best for the greater of that school
(10:41):
district. Well I think to piggyback on what yousaid the superintendent has a level of detail that
you don't have access to. So if you have a questionyou ask them first and they will give you ad nauseam
detail. Yes. Absolutely. I think too it'simportant to establish what the lines of
communication are how for example if you're aboard member and someone calls you what do you do
(11:05):
next. You don't make the decision well we're goingto do this. You either need to say you need to
contact the superintendent or I'll contact thesuperintendent and have the superintendent
contact you or whoever the person should be. Youbreak those lines of communication that's going
to get you in trouble too. I think transparency hasa lot of weight on this. You have to be transparent
(11:29):
everything you do. Also a parent might call about abus problem. I don't go to the bus driver. I tell the
parent call your principal. The principal runsthat school run for your child attends and that
doesn't work the principal will go to thesuperintendent and if it's not resolved let me
know and I'll get the superintendent involved.But like Keyes said there is a line of
(11:52):
communication and it's not always thesuperintendent. I always like my principal first
at that school and put those folks in contact withthat principal. They call you know put them in the
right direction because if the superintendenttakes every call that a board member gets he
doesn't have time. No. You know you have to take thechain of command all the way from the bottom to the
(12:13):
top. His job would basically be turning into a callcenter. So it's like saying... It's not what we
paid them for. Have you talked to the teacher?Exactly. Well have you talked to the... No. I just
wanted to go to the top first. That's not the way youdo it. I mean you don't do that at a Fortune 500
(12:33):
company. You don't go immediately to the CEO whenyou have a problem. No. You start and then you just
kind of build up from there. Just like any othercompany run organization that type of thing. I
heard a great saying last night that somebody wasbeing funny and they said I want to talk to the
person that can fire you. That is not the way to getit done folks. Teacher, principal,
(12:56):
superintendent, then board. I would give them the1-800-GET-LOSS number. I'm not going to say but
the person who took the phone was sitting in thisroom. It was a total different situation. Oh I see
what it is here. Yeah exactly. I always saidsomebody under the bus. I love that. I'm going to
use it. It was awesome. So what are some things thaty'all have discovered during your time as a board
(13:21):
member that you would have never expected yourfirst year in the position as a school board
member? Oh this should be good. I like thisquestion a lot. I started off. I was elected in 1985
in my first term and it was a lot different back inthose days. I know I'm dated on this but it was a lot
(13:41):
different. People had their own agendas. We had alot of consolidation in schools and we were
building schools and each community wanted aschool. And that was one of my biggest obstacles to
overcome. People called and they were getting madat you. It was awful. I mean it was kind of a bad time
to start. Man, you lasted. Well, I had a littlebreak in between there. I had an eight year break. I
(14:07):
need some sleep. So give me a couple of years.Exactly, I had to take a break. But that was one of my
remembrances of my first time around. What aboutthe rest of y'all? Parents are very passionate.
Yeah. And like even down to what is served to theirchild at the lunch table and they will come to you
(14:28):
about anything. And that was very surprising to methat, you know, wow, I'm getting calls on just
ridiculous. The cookies are too soft. Yes. Yeah.Or they're not, you know, serving the cheesy bread
anymore or the brand of the milk. No. Well, really,you got those? Oh, yes. So that was a little
(14:50):
surprising. So but it does give you an opportunityto talk to that parent and kind of educate them a
little bit about what your real job is. But I wasreally shocked about things like that. For me,
personally, the first thing I learned is Icouldn't go to the grocery store anymore. But
because we started a brand new district. And soit's all brand new. And there was a million
(15:11):
questions and we were working 100 hour weeks forseven months getting this thing up and running.
And I couldn't go to the grocery store. It wouldtake me hours. Wow. And so, hey, that's a win
because I don't have to go to the grocery storeanymore. Poor Dale. Nine years in, I'm still
shocked by the thing I get calls about. Now, one ofmy sons, he's 14, so he's in ninth grade. He
(15:35):
informed me the other day that the dividers in themen's bathroom are not tall enough because if
you're five foot five, you can still look over andsee the guy next to you. So I learned that as well. So
it's always interesting. You never know whatsomebody's going to ask you. But I think key's
point is the most important. When somebody callsyou on it, those are funny things, obviously, but
(15:59):
on a serious issue, especially like a SPED issue orsome transition specialist issue, anything like
that, you absolutely just don't answer for theboard. Right. You don't answer for the board.
Right. You get this to the person that can fix theproblem or can address the problem. You don't take
that problem on yourself because inevitablythey're going to hear one tiny thing that you said
(16:21):
and they're going to say, well, board member saidthis. And they'll bring it up. That person will
come to the board meeting and bring it up duringpublic comment. And then it'll blindside all of
the other board members. And I will tell you nowthat a lot of these parents, and I don't want to
sound paranoid, but they record everything yousay. So you just. I'm recording you right now.
(16:42):
Right. Just don't tread out to the deep waters.Especially as a new board member that is so far
outside your purview. Just be careful. And it'sokay to say, I don't know. I can get back to you. Yes.
Or even let me get in touch with the person you canfix this problem. Because I'm not a problem. Yeah.
(17:04):
I think too, as a new board member, it could becomevery easy to let the negative overshadow the
positive. There's much more positive in publiceducation than there is negative. But if you dwell
on those negative things, it's obviously veryeasy to let that overwhelm you and forget about all
(17:27):
the good things that are going on. But keys,negativity is what sells media in news. We're
supposed to focus on the negativity, right?Otherwise, what are we going to talk about? I
didn't say it was easy. We don't want to talk aboutthe good things. Well, I want to mention one of
these things because like we, every year we do ahuge district kickoff thing and the teachers are
(17:50):
freshly back from summer and the energy isamazing. And it's truly the most exciting time as a
board member, other than that time in May when youstand across the stage and you watch all those
graduates and you hear they got $43 million inscholarships and you see your service Academy
students stand up. Like it makes everything else.Just what you give pales in comparison to what you
(18:14):
receive. It's almost like at the end of the year,you get the refresh that you needed to start the new
school year. It's the most amazing thing to seethose kids out there and it makes it worth it.
Absolutely. Plus I don't have to go to the grocerystore. So wait, how do you get your groceries? It's
like everything in my house. When I take the lastprotein bar out of the box, it magically
(18:37):
reappears. Oh, you have a fairy. It's a fairy. It'sa fairy. It magically reappears. I gotta give me
one of those. I don't know how. My house is magical.Wow. That is called an awesome wife. It's
possible. That's a podcast episode for anotherday. Exactly. For our new school board members,
(18:58):
well actually as well as our veteran school boardmembers included how are the services provided by
TSBA beneficial for y'all when serving on theboard? Of course I gotta get my TSBA plug in there.
So how can we help y'all be good? A new board memberneeds to take advantage of lots of training that
TSBA has. They need to go to the new board memberorientation. New chairman needs to go to the
(19:22):
chairman workshop and do all the classes that youcan with TSBA. TSBA has a wealth of information and
we couldn't survive without them. That is so true.Y'all could. 100% Absolutely. I am glad that you
said that about the orientation becauseorientation for a new school board member is
required by the state and TSBA provides thatorientation for free. It's really, really good.
(19:48):
It's very informative and it kind of brings lightand it's almost like a nice little synopsis of what
you can expect your first year as a school boardmember. So I highly, highly recommend y'all
coming in to do that. But yeah, what else do we offery'all that is just beneficial and y'all can't live
without legal advice? Absolutely. The policydepartment is great. You have a problem and you
(20:12):
have TSBA who writes the policy and it's legal withour TSBA attorneys and a school board's operate
all the policies. It's just the bottom line andTSBA provides those policies with input from the
school for superintendents and the board's teamto work out the problems and have a policy for
everyone. Those policies, they can be tricky.Yes. And what a lot of school districts find is that
(20:37):
they'll have a lot of policies and then in chapterone, that says one thing and then chapter 10, it's
like a discrepancy and they don't make sense andthen that's where you get yourself in trouble. So
TSBA, we do have a policy department where it issolely focused on finding those errors and making
sure that your policy is clear and you'recompletely covered and you are, you're able to
(21:00):
function and make decisions based on thosepolicies put into place. And as a board, if the time
comes where you are looking for a newsuperintendent, then TSBA provides the service
of a superintendent's search, which makes it a loteasier for the board to go through the process and
(21:21):
to find the person that they feel would best leadtheir district. Yes. We do community forums
whenever we do the superintendent searches fory'all. It's a nationwide search and so we're not
just looking locally, but we're lookingnationwide. You can specify. Exactly. Where you
want regional or national service. You can tell uswhat you're looking for. We also let the community
(21:41):
come in and recommend people that we can go in andconsider and recruit for. So yeah, I mean, it's
definitely a community based superintendentsearch. And then we provide those candidates to
the board and then they, we usually give them thetop three. And if they want it, the board can ask for
all of the candidates and whatever. But weusually, that's typically how it works. To me, the
(22:06):
answer to this question is the easiest. There is nofacet of running your school district that TSBA
cannot help you. Absolutely. There's just not.Like we talked about some of them, but there's OPEP
trust. There's strategic planning. There is nofacet of running your district that they cannot
help you with in some regard. Not everybody hasin-house counsel. So the policy thing is huge. You
(22:30):
may have a legal question. They are directlyaligned to Tennessee Department of Education.
They help with federal advocacy. Justeverything. We have VOE Connect. VOE Connect,
which is amazing for your meeting. Keeps you righton track. And if you hit the follow button, you
don't need to do anything. Your secretary justruns it. It's amazing. And it keeps you on track and
(22:53):
keeps you going. I'm a little partial to VOEConnect because I am the VOE Connect consultant.
It's an amazing program. And I love that program.So for those of you all that don't know what it is, it
is an online meeting platform for your schoolboard to be able to use to conduct your monthly
meetings. You can also do your committeemeetings. You can do closed session meetings,
special called meetings, emergency meetings,everything. And it's all electronic and it
(23:16):
streamlines everything. It makes it available tothe public. It has your agendas and your minutes
report. And your votes. And your votes. You takeactions in there. You add in your discussions. It
auto-generates your minutes reports. You don'tjust holler at me if you want to learn any more about
the VOE Connect. Well, I think the most importantthing you guys do is the board'smanship program.
We didn't talk about that. Because as a new boardmember or a veteran board member that hasn't
(23:40):
advanced their board membership position,you're doing a disservice to your district and to
your students. Because the more you know, the moreyou know. We actually recently recorded a podcast
with keys talking specifically about theboard'smanship program. So I highly recommend
all going back and listening to that episode aswell. It's the most valuable thing you can offer
(24:02):
your district as a board member is to advance thatposition. Absolutely. And that's what you're
elected to do is to be an advocate. So you've got tolearn in order to be an advocate for your district.
One other area that is important to us as boardmembers, new board members, old board members as a
service through TSBA is the leadership from TSBAthrough the legislature to try to keep us on track
(24:31):
with pending legislation, knowing what'shappening, what's coming down the pike, what we
may be faced with. And certainly that is doneexceptionally I think through TSBA. Well, I'm not
going to interpret that because some of the stuffyou don't even need to figure out. Well, Emily
Warren, she is our director of governmentrelations here at TSBA and her and Ben Torres, they
(24:56):
are up on the hill basically every single day.Learning about new things, pushing for things to
get past that support public education and thattype of thing. So yeah, we're very passionate
about that and at fall district meetings and at ourannual convention at the Delegate Assembly,
that's when our few rare times that we get all of ourschool districts together where you can vote on
(25:17):
legislative agendas, voting in on things, askingfor TSBA to go in and lobby for certain things for
public education. So we do provide thoseopportunities for our statewide recognition, I
guess, basically in that type of thing. I'll plugthat to the convention last year. I don't know if it
was just the best one ever or if everybody couldn'twait to get back together. I think it's a little bit
(25:42):
of both. That convention last year, if you didn'tknow, shame on you. It was amazing. I think it was
the best one we've ever had. Really? Oh, that's sogood to hear. Well, that was everything that I
wanted to ask you all. Was there anything that youall wanted to add to our new school board members,
something you feel like we didn't get to discuss,something you really want to make sure that you get
(26:03):
across to them? Remember rule number one, do notsurprise your superintendent or board chair
during a meeting. Never. Rule number one, never.And big patient. At the end of the day, it's all
about the children. That's the role of a schoolboard member. It's about the children what's best
for them. Absolutely. And if you think beingelected, you were only going to have to attend one
(26:24):
meeting a month and that was it. There's a lot morebeing involved. My own board. Do the work. Do the
work. Do the work. Do the work. And not only yourpoint, but that is the number one thing. Don't ever
surprise them. Come to board meetings prepared.Prepared. Yes. Come prepared. That is your job.
Yeah. You all seem like you'll have someexperience in all of this. But I think most of us
(26:47):
have been on board a long time. Yeah. Well, I can'tbelieve it, but we are getting done with this
podcast and within 30 minutes with five talkers.We all need to give ourselves a round of applause.
Yeah. On the back. All right. Well, thank youeverybody for tuning into this month's podcast.
We will see you all next time. Thanks for joining ustoday. Whether you're driving to work or on your
(27:11):
back porch enjoying your morning coffee, we hopeyou enjoyed this dive into public education. For
future episodes, subscribe to our podcast bygoing to iTunes and search for TSBA, your
education source, and click subscribe. Or you cancheck us out on our website at tsba.net. If you have
any questions about today's discussion, pleasefeel free to reach out to us at podcast at tsba.net.
(27:36):
Also, please rate this episode to let us know howwe're doing and tell us what topics you want to hear 277 00:27:41,580 --> about. Thanks again for listening. We hope you join us next time on TSBA, your education source.
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