TORRINGTON – The Goshen County School District Board held a workshop to discuss board governance leadership on Monday.
Director of Leadership Development at Wyoming School Boards Association (WSBA) Rod Kessler, who met with the board in September, discussed areas where the board members felt they were doing well and where they needed to improve.
Trustee Carlos Saucedo attended the meeting via Zoom and Trustee Dylan Hager was absent.
Kessler said this is one of the most difficult times to work in education because of the pandemic and political divide in the country.
“My belief is it’s a crazy time to be a public servant like you guys are,” Kessler said.
One issue which arose since the last time Kessler met with the board was when the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to the President of the United States asking for assistance with communities who were attacking and threatening local school board members because of mask mandates. Kessler said the letter was an inaccurate representation of many states in the west including Wyoming and the NSBA saw many members withdraw as a result.
Kessler said WSBA Executive Director Brian Famer wrote a letter to the NSBA stating they did not agree and they encourage community participation at meetings.
“Really what happened was it went real left,” Kessler said. “I’m not politically telling you that I’m left or right I’m just telling you it went very left and it was very negative and it didn’t strike a good chord with this part of the country.”
Political unrest was one of the top eight challenges Kessler hears the most from school boards around the state along with the school funding economic slump, COVID related issues, finding and retaining quality leadership and staff, graduation rates and student dropouts, student performance, mental health issues and board leadership effectiveness.
Kessler also said while there are many issues school boards would like to focus on, much of their time goes toward COVID related topics.
Everybody has been spending a lot of time on COVID in the last two years, and so when I ask the question how much time are you spending on the other stuff I get a variety of answers,” Kessler said.
The board looked at its current vision and mission with Kessler and talked about trying to reconstruct what their goals are for the district.
Chairman Zach Miller said it is something they have been trying to work on for the last two and a half years, since then only three board members (Trustees Katherine Patrick, Saucedo and Miller) remain.
Kessler asked the board about what they thought they were doing well. Trustee Kerry Bullington said they had amazing teachers and staff as they have been asked to do so much throughout the last two years, while Miller said their communication with each other and with the community was improving. Vice Chairman Michael Sussex added to the communication part stating they have asked for community input on how they should spend ESSER III funds.
In terms of areas to improve on, Bullington related back to the staff and said they have seen a lot of turnover in the last few years and the board should work on retaining staff.
For Chairman Miller, he hoped to be able to have more open conversations with his fellow board members on what their visions are for the school district, but worried about the public’s perception on such conversations.
While Kessler suggested doing work sessions on specific topics, Sussex said it would still not allow for open conversations and Miller cited instances in which he and his family were threatened for comments he made and said they were taken out of context on
social media.
The board also discussed sending out climate surveys and trying to think of ways to guarantee participation from the staff as they have seen low rates of participation in past surveys.
The board also discussed using Kessler’s example survey for school boards so they can gauge how they all feel they are doing as a board and figure out how they can improve.
In other items of business, the board accepted the resignations of Lincoln Elementary School teacher Amy Schmick and Torrington High School teacher Charles Richter.
The board also accepted the resignation of Trustee Taylor Schmick. Trustee Patrick thanked Schmick for his service on the board and said he will be missed.
Applications for the vacant position on the board are due at the Central Administration Office by 3 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 28. Interviews will take place on Thursday, Feb. 3.
The next school board meeting is Feb. 8 at 7 p.m.
