One of the suggestions from the Spring for handling enrollment growth has finally come to fruition. The Facility-Enrollment Task Force is now taking applications, and you can learn how to apply at the district website: http://www.brssd.org/facility_enrollment_taskforce
I like that Dr. Milliken is really focusing on selecting a diverse group of task force members that includes staff, parents, and non-parents and the requested background information includes a section on what unique perspective the applicant would bring to the task force. Just as in the school board elections, I feel that diversity should not only be demographic or geographic in nature, but should reflect different skills and life experiences.
At the last school board meeting, the board made an assumption that 2 board members would be selected to serve on the task force, in line with tradition. Dr. Milliken was surprised by this assumption as this is not what he envisioned. He suggested that board members could be involved as observers as the meetings are public. Because Robert Tashjian was not present at the meeting, and he and Dan Kaul are the only two board members who are guaranteed to remain board members for the duration of the task force, the discussion on board member inclusion in the task force was deferred to the Sep 19 board meeting - see agenda here - http://belmont.csbaagendaonline.net/cgi-bin/WebObjects/belmont-eAgenda.woa/wa/displayMeeting?meeting...
I believe that it is not necessary to have 2 board members on the Facility-Enrollment Task Force. The board already has significant influence over the outcome because any recommendation by the Task Force has to be approved by the board. I have heard arguments that if the board does not buy-in to the task force's recommendation, then the board will reject the recommendation. Buy-in does not require that board members be a part of the task force to influence the recommendation that is proposed. It is more important for the 10-15 member task force to include two additional community perspectives vs. board perspectives. As observers in the process, board members can focus on listening and asking clarifying questions. If the board members engage with the Superintendent and Task Force in this manner, then they will understand what is important to staff, parents, non-parents, they will understand the rationale behind the recommendation, they will understand what needs to be communicated to various stakeholders, and they will be bought in. This way we will finally reach universal buy-in throughout the district, and the district will have a mandate to execute on the recommendation.
Now I ask this question of the Patch readers. Do you feel it is necessary to have board member representation on the task force? Do you have any suggestions on how to ensure there is diverse representation on the Facility-Enrollment Task Force?
