The Past Four Years

The past four years.

I believe board work is at the foundation of transforming up or diminishing down school district culture and outcomes. During these past four years I worked to help create improvement in our governance through policy, procedure and a manual to help define a road map for getting things done. The following are some highlights.

Served on the Policy Committee for most of my term. District policies have not been reviewed and approved for many years causing non-compliant in our policies. In addition, important board governing policies. The 200 and 300 series policies are the working policies for board members and the policies governing board and superintendent relationship. These policies have been review, sometimes revised and all approved by the Board.

The other policies are operational in nature. 

Happy to say that ALL of the district policies have been reviewed, revised and approved, we are compliant with state and federal statutes. This was a huge job supported by the executive director of human resources, an administrative assistant, three board members and staff/teachers or other experts as needed for each class of policies and each policy. We have rules in place and a sustainable procedures to maintain compliance.

Served on an ad hoc Safety and Security Committee for the first two years of my term. Two years ago, the work of the ad hoc committee was rightfully assigned to staff at the direction of the new superintendent. Safety and Security is operational not governance. Staff do not answer to the Board; this creates huge conflicts.  The board directs the superintendent to improve safety and security within the district. Many provable and accountable improvements were made in Safety and Security over the past two years and continued to be made by new leadership.

·       Served as Chair of the board during the hiring of Dr. Teri Staloch. Required intensive work with the executive search firm and our lawyer in addition to helping establish first year goals.

·       Suggested Board utilizes the Collaboration & Dispute Resolution department from the state’s Department of Administration as a mediation team to help calm very contentious board meetings. Although the idea had majority Board support, in the end, some of the board members decided to not participate, “mediation” ended before it began.

·       Took the initiative to bring the newly created MSBA (MN School Board Association, our professional association) School Board Governance Manual to the Robbinsdale School Board for their approval. I attended the MSBA class to better understand the manual then enlisted the help of Director Evans-Becker to get the work done. Together, we were happy to have the Board’s approval in November of 2025 for this very important document.

·       Served on the Financial Advisory Committee (FAC). I left the committee when I was convinced it had an appropriate define role to play in the district’s budget process. The work of the FAC transformed with the clear role definition. The FAC is a community committee engaged in the budget process. The FAC helps the CFO set the assumptions used for crafting the budget. Continuting the important role of community oversight from the beginning.