Lessons for a school board

How does the Beaufort County School District really improve delivery of services to our students?

Beyond the transparency issues that plague the district, the board can make great strides by accepting its function as a governing body and not as experts on education.

How can the board contribute to district success? The best thing it can do is to enable our professional educators by making sure those educators have the tools to do their job. The tools they need to do their job are simply funding, facilities, training and administrative support.

How does the board enable that? Not by trying to be educators themselves, or by being cheerleaders, but by being a governing body — one that pays attention to financial oversight, to the wishes and needs of constituents and parents, and to the performance of its employee, the superintendent. That is how they deliver “for the children.”

If we stand back, we see that the good things about our district outnumber the problems, but the problems are severe. They inhibit the district from being the model that it could be. They dominate the conversation.

But problem solvers succeed by addressing problems, not by denying them, and not by hiding behind slogans. We all want our school system to be the very best that it can be. We will get there if we become problem solvers, not problem avoiders.

We become enablers when we understand our role and concentrate on that. Be an enabler!

This story was originally published July 30, 2017 at 10:05 AM with the headline "Lessons for a school board."