School board members, superintendents and administrators from eastern Oregon gathered on September 19th for a Regional Board Conference at IMESD. The event in Pendleton provided opportunities for school board members to receive professional development about their role and for superintendents to learn about interacting with their school boards. About 45 superintendents, board members and others attended.
The conference began with a networking dinner, followed by a few superintendents from school districts sharing some recent celebrations in their districts, from completed bond projects to reading intervention programs.
Then, Spencer Lewis from OSBA (Oregon School Boards Association) gave a presentation to the entire group about Board Policy Best Practices. He shared that a school district’s board policies are intended to meet legal requirements, establish rules for the district and to communicate.
Conference participants then chose 30-minute breakout sessions to attend. The “Superintendent Evaluations” session was led by Umatilla School District Superintendent Heidi Sipe and Morrow County School District Superintendent Matt Combe. They acknowledged that like any job, some years for superintendents go great and some are more challenging, but having collective feedback from the school board can be helpful.
“Creating and Managing a School Budget” was another session led by Dr. Mark Mulvihill, IMESD Superintendent, Kelly Bissinger, IMESD Board Chair, and Beth O’Hanlon, IMESD Chief Financial Officer. Bissinger said school boards need to keep their mission and vision statements at the forefront of budget planning. “Say to yourself, if we were meeting here three years from today, what has to happen for us to be happy,” Bissinger said. CFO O’Hanlon said it’s important to remember that district funds are government money the second they enter the building and “today’s money is meant for today’s students, we are not an investment bank.”
OSBA’s Lewis and his colleague Haley Percell presented a session entitled “Executive Session Procedures” which included reasons for using these sessions, complaint processes and media access to these.
Executive Assistants to school boards had their own session called “Board Meeting Best Practices.” IMESD’s Danielle Sackett, Executive Assistant to the Superintendent, and Kim Youncs, Human Resources Specialist, led it. The group discussed board task checklists, creating agendas, legal requirements for posting board materials and more.
IMESD Superintendent Mulvihill said this is the second year IMESD has organized the Regional Board Conference and that it’s valuable for board members and district administrators to share ideas and best practices. “Providing opportunities for collaboration between our districts is what IMESD is about, and this is one more way we offer support to our districts."
OSBA's Haley Percell presents.
Presenters and attendees at the school budget session.