OFF THE CUFF: Trustee Wright’s A-team meeting 9/2/10

[Karen Gray]

Impressed, absolutely impressed…

This morning I attended the first A-team meeting for the 2010-11
school year and walked into a room full of people — many of them
parents. I was impressed, because, to be honest, the meetings I
attended last year were not well attended. And so, I thought, “Hats
off to Deanna and District A parents!”

And the discussions between staff and parents were just that —
discussions between parents and staff. It wasn’t staff just telling
parents that this is that, then, parents shaking their heads as if to
say, oh… okay.

On the agenda were two bill-draft requests, or BDRs, submitted by the
Clark County School District to the legislature. One, the district’s
request to have introduced a law that would place a lien on a parent’s
property in certain instances of truancy, sparked heated discussion.
One parent was quite frustrated over the fact that she was just now
learning of this BDR. She said she attends several parent groups and
was never informed that this BDR was being considered. She posed the
question: Just what meetings is a parent supposed to go to, to really
know what’s going on?

Well…

It’s always been my position that the one meeting parents need to
attend is that of the school board. If you want to know and have
meaningful input into what’s going on in the district, in your child’s
school, then school board meetings are where you need to be — it’s
that simple.

School board meetings are where the discussions and decisions occur.
It’s not enough to watch the live Internet feed on CCSD’s website when
the meeting is happening. Parents should request to be put on the
mailing list for agenda and back-up documents. Then, they should
review them. And then, I say, go to as many school board meetings as
you can.

Personally, I think it’s important for parents to attend all the
school board meetings — to really know and understand what’s going on
in the system. Yet homework, soccer practice and dinner are important
too, so at least try to attend the meetings where topics that interest
you are on the agenda. And while you’re there, feel free to give your
parental input to the full board during public comment times.

Remember, no individual trustee can make a decision: it requires a
majority of the board to do that. You should let the whole board know
what you think, because it takes most of them to make the decision.