School Board Meeting

            This past week, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit a Goshen Community Schools board meeting. This was the first board meeting I have ever been to, so this experience was very informational. The meeting was held at the school administration building, and was pretty well attended for what I was expecting. Along with the general information discussed at the meeting, the focus for the night was on Goshen Middle School (GMS), so several faculty, staff, and students presented information to the board in regards to GMS. As I just finished my student teaching at GMS, it was interesting to see what information they chose to present. Jan Desmarais-Morse and Linda Dickerson, the 7^th and 8^th grade counselors, as well as Lori Shreiner, the principal talked about the success of several students on raising their ISTEP scores this past year after putting extra effort/practice into improving. Some of these students had improved their scores by 50-100 points, and were therefore at the board meeting with their families to receive awards. Mrs. Dickerson also presented on the anti-bullying actions the school is taking through the Secret deodorant “Bullying Stinks” campaign.

            After GMS finished presenting, the board proceeded to talk about other more regular agenda items. Some of the topics for this meeting consisted of talk about some traffic problems that have been occurring at Model Elementary, Autism paraprofessionals in Goshen being moved to other community schools, transportation cuts being discussed at the state level, and how Glenda Ritz was going to be in town visiting some schools. All of these proceedings were carried out in a parliamentary procedure format, and were sometimes difficult for me to follow, especially since I haven’t been keeping up with all of the school related news that has been occurring in Goshen School District. However, it was interesting to see the interactions of the board members and observe how they all work together to give and receive information and make decisions.

            Overall, attending this school board meeting was very informational and exposed me to a side of education that I am not too familiar with. Despite not having much experience with what happens in education at the more administrative level, I believe that becoming versed in the discussions taking place around education in places like school board meetings is important to keep current with. This is especially so as decisions made at a higher level eventually affect schools, and therefore teachers. Attending more upper-level functions like school board meetings, then, is one of my goals in the future.