Schoolboard Community Participation

An understanding of the role of parents and other community members at PCS board meetings necessarily hinges to a certain extent on an understanding of the roles in general of the school board and the principal.

The board’s primary roles are to develop and maintain school district policies, to recommend budgets to the town, and to make hiring decisions. Additional tasks of the board include setting the school calendar, resolving complaints*, setting educational goals, ensuring the long-term viability of the building and grounds, authorizing the payment of bills, and authorizing money management strategies for the school. The principal’s primary role is to administer the school. In doing so, the principal is supervised (and reports to) the WSESU Supervisor (currently Ron Stahley). “Administering the school” includes everything from making class assignments to creating class groupings to making sure that there is a procedure in place to put children on the bus.

The principal’s administrative roles and prerogatives are quite broad. The board’s administrative roles and prerogatives are quite narrow. One way to explain the relationship between board and principal is that the board decides in very broad strokes what to do and the principal decides how to do it. If the board decides that the budget allows for 18 teachers, the principal decides how best to assign the 18 teachers on staff to classrooms.

The board especially welcomes community input about budgetary, hiring, and policy matters as well as about any of the limited administrative matters that fall within its purview. Although most administrative matters lie beyond the board’s purview, the board also welcomes comments about them, as well, because the board needs to be fully informed of the climate and “hot topics” at the school in order to make its decisions responsibly.

When community members comment at board meetings, their role is to inform the board. The board will take their comments seriously, deliberate about them, and act appropriately. That process can take time.

Letters are another good way for community members to inform the board (or principal or supervisor) regarding their views and questions about or experience with school matters. Letters sent to the principal, board, or supervisor might best be copied to the other two of those parties, because, while the three parties have discrete responsibilities, they do need to work closely together and share information.