A school district is beautiful in its own way

Spectrum, by Mike Chmielewski

Have you watched a spider web glisten in the sun? And noticed what happens when a fly comes to visit? The web shakes and the spider dances over to see what has shaken its web.

If only a school district had just a single web. We might more easily understand the district's workings. But it doesn't. And therein lie both the problem and the beauty. There are many webs: Some are built by the district; others by the community. They connect everyone. And they are shaking all the time.

The illusion: There's a direct line from central administration or the school board to every specific problem in the district. The beautiful reality: a powerful, dictatorial system does not exist.

The illusion: The community tells the school board which tells the chief school administrator who tells the directors who tell the principals who tell the staff who tell the students … and the students learn -- or the problems are solved -- and then the message of how well students are doing flows back to the board. The true reality: It doesn't happen that way, not here, not anywhere.

There are 1,500 staff, 13,500 students and more than 20,000 parents, all clustered by school, by program by geographical area, each temporarily joining with others to send a message to the central administration and board.

With a multitude of requests from often shifting groups, how does any individual problem or complaint or suggestion get heard and resolved?

District policy encourages responses at the level closest to the need. And that works. Many problems are solved at the local level -- by the teacher and staff in the school, by students with one another, or by principals and parents. What about the ones that aren't?

Does this mean if a solution at a local level isn't immediately found, the next step is the school board or legal action? I don't think so. The best board refuses to do it all. What must be added is local, sustained action. I put emphasis on sustained. Engaging in a brief monologue with a local administrator is not sustained effort.

Life is messy. Those of us who have enjoyed parenting experiences know of what I write. The messiness of life from learning to eat to caring for a parent with Alzheimer's demonstrates that quality. Learning in school is also a messy process. Those who think otherwise are invited to spend time with the range of students and their assorted needs for a week -- a typical experience for school staff. If learning were simple we would long ago have developed clear manuals with step by step instruction.

Yes, there are examples of sustained efforts that provide a structure for this messy learning to succeed. They range from a successful 10-year run of a middle school program, to the only International Baccalaureate Program in Alaska, to a state of the art vocational program in welding, to a multitude of individual classrooms with experienced teachers.

Another form of success is found in the board policies for hearings and reviews of local decisions. When those policies work good solutions usually result. One form of solution often starts with written complaint forms. When someone is upset with action at a local site, verbally jumping to the top is seductive. Quick fixes are expected. The act of filling out a complaint form helps clarify what has or has not been done to address the issue and to identify who best can work toward a solution.

Over the years I have learned the nature of long-lasting and evolving success at conflict resolution or program development: There is a clearly identified need, involved parties are willing to work together to find a solution, the solution is a good one, and policies are continually reviewed for effectiveness.

To expect a central administration or school board to immediately solve every issue is to expect failure, especially if the expected solution satisfies only individual needs.

On the other hand, school board members have specific responsibilities. These include hiring the district executive, setting policy guidelines within which the school administration will operate, evaluating progress toward district goals and approving a balanced budget. In other words, ensuring that the form for meeting educational needs for all students is in place. Simply put, often the board needs to get out of the way and let the local responsible authority act.

There is no free ride for either school board or community members. What I'm describing is both a bottom-up, and top-down model. People know what's happening in their child's life. If you have a son or daughter in school, I'd like to believe the knowing about their life extends to what they do in school each day. And the board has a different need to know about students, more about finding ways to prioritize resources and ensuring that policies truly support local agreement about what we want all our students to learn.

Each year a cycle of activity repeats itself with educational needs driving our search for a balanced, prioritized budget. The measure of our success as a community and school district will be found in our ability to involve community members in the process of looking at both local and districtwide needs.

Whether forming groups to look at a small schools funding formula, the value of a middle school program, grievance processes or extracurricular activities, the hard work needs to be done early. For my part I pledge to support both that work and use of local input in the development of programs, budgets and policy recommendations.

Sustained educational involvement means everyone doing something all the time. The webs for both action and communication are there. Let's improve them if need be and use them effectively for everyone's benefit.

Mike Chmielewski is the president of the Mat-Su Borough School Board.