FROM THE MAIL ROOM TO THE VICE PRESIDENCY:
THE SOCIALIZATION OF ALBERTA SCHOOL TRUSTEES
Dr. Dale Erickson
Alberta School Boards Association
drdale@compusmart.ab.ca
and
Dr. Robert Stout
Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Arizona State University
ABSTRACT
A study in the Province of Alberta similar to work done in
Arizona, U.S.A. (Stout, 1982), indicates that many of the same
dynamics are at play during the time that citizens become seasoned
school trustees.
INTRODUCTION
Unlike politicians in many other sectors, school board
trustees more often are novices in public affairs than they are
seasoned political activists. As a consequence, otherwise normal
citizens must quickly acquire political and other policy-related
skills, most often after election and while serving. This study
is an analysis of the first year of service of newly-elected
school trustees in Alberta. Interviews with the trustees allows a
discussion of their experiences and the people and events which
they encountered and which they say had influence on them while
they learned opportunities and obligations attaching to
trusteeship.
RELATED RESEARCH
A Saskatchewan School Trustees Association study (Gunningham,
1984) of rural trustees found that trustees said that other
trustees were the most influential sources of their on the job
socialization and that the administration and teaching staff also
contributed. The observations of Saskatchewan trustees are
consistent with socialization literature on two important counts;
socialization to a group occurs in the context of the group, and
influentials within the group play important roles in the
inculcation of new members. These are complex and dynamic
relationships. They are complex enough that Zeigler (1975) has
reminded us that studies of individual school board members, as
individuals, may miss the point. To understand school trustees as
policy makers requires that they be studied in the context of the
board.
Forsyth (1983), drawing on the work of Schutz, discussed
three basic needs satisfied through group membership; inclusion,
control and affection. The newly elected school trustee,
struggling to find out just what the business of boardsmanship is
all about, faces the matter of inclusion from the first meeting.
S/he must learn how decisions are made and who has how much
influence over the others. Finally, trustees must come to
understand how other trustees view them. All of this is
independent of the processes of making policy choices anchored in
their own values. As Allison and Messick (1987) have argued,
Groups, as we have shown, can and do produce decisions
that fail to correspond to [individual] member
preferences. More than that, we have also seen that
group decisions may have properties that do not
characterize any of the individuals. (p. 138)
But collectivities of trustees are not groups as Bar-Tal
(1990) has argued. This argument is that:
The three necessary and sufficient conditions for a
collective to a be a group are: (a) Individuals in the
collective should define themselves as group members; (b) they
should share beliefs, including group beliefs; and (c) there
should be some level of coordinated activity. (p. 41) Thus it is
of interest to understand how new school trustees acquire the
attitudes, skills and knowledge necessary for them to carry out
their obligations as trustees in the context of a board as a
group. Kerr (1964) argued that the superintendent of schools
moved newly elected trustees closer to the role expectations held
by the superintendent. Kerr maintained that the lack of clear
trustee constituencies made new members more receptive to
superintendent influence. Cistone (1977), examining Ontario
school boards discovered that new school trustees came to accept
the role definitions of more experienced trustees.
Stout (1982) posited a five step model of the socialization
of school board members in the United States. Stout interviewed
all candidates for school boards in Maricopa County (Phoenix) in
1980. Subsequently she interviewed each of the winners (16) three
times during their first year of office. She was interested, as
we are in this study, in the forces which newly elected school
board members recount as influential in their progress from
candidate to "seasoned" school board member.
In her model the first phase of development is what she
termed Rites of Passage. At this stage, which takes individuals
through the periods of candidacy, the election, and taking the
oath of office, school board members described the necessity to
practice the arts of politics and to meet people who are already
"insiders" in the school policy arena.
In the second stage, which she called Absorption of the
Norms, school board members learn the norms of consensual voting,
avoidance of public disagreement over agenda items, and the idea
of the board as a team. The primary sources of influence in this
stage are the pressures brought by other school board members to
"fit in" and the new school board member's own reluctance to
become isolated from the group.
In the third phase school board members learn the tools of
the trade, including technical knowledge. They also begin to
reflect on themselves. They learn what information they need to
make decisions and how to get it. They begin to see themselves as
public figures and to critique their own public behaviors. And
they begin to have an understanding of how they influence more
senior board members.
In the fourth stage, called Reframing Reality, school board
members have been in office for four or five months. They begin
to view the school policy world in new, and generally much more
sophisticated, ways. They come to understand and to be able to
describe the multiple options that attach to many policy
decisions, the nature of competing points of view, and the
difficulty of reaching decisions which may have multiple
consequences.
In the fifth stage, school board members are subject to what
Stout calls Forces for Cohesion. They become increasingly subject
to intra-board influence, and their decision stimuli become
standardized as a result of the agenda-setting processes of public
government. They describe feelings of increasing isolation from
the general public and increasing comfort with the values of other
board members. Especially they feel the pressure inherent in the
Arizona requirement that they decide contentious matters in full
view of the public and by recorded vote. Stout concluded by
arguing that these forces were powerful enough to change the
perceptions of even school board members who were elected to the
board on agendas in opposition to the status quo. Exceptions
to this almost inexorable standardization of view occurred of
course, but infrequently. The most powerful source of continued
resistance was a clear, and persistent constituency which held its
newly-elected board member to the original agenda, and to which
the newly-elected member could turn for support and justification
during rancorous debate over policy direction. While the
superintendent was deemed by Stout to be an important influence,
other board members, and the context of board obligations, were
argued to be more powerful. Tallerico (1989), though, argued that
Stout's analysis portrayed school board members as more compliant
and vulnerable to external influences than they are in fact. She
argued that new school board members are much more active than
passive, seeking out avenues for developing the knowledge to
forward their own agendas. Chief among the needs of new school
board members was their desire to gain public trust, to avoid the
appearance of ignorance with respect to important issues, and to
demonstrate a caring attitude toward teachers and children.
The question of school trustee socialization is not so much
one of whether it happens, as it is of the processes which
influence the development from citizen to experienced trustee.
METHOD
The primary source of data were three sets of semi-structured
interviews conducted with ten newly elected Alberta trustees
during the period October 1992 to August 1993. In order to choose
potential participants school districts within a reasonable
driving distance of Edmonton were identified. A second criterion
was to ensure that the various types of school districts would be
represented in the sample. The superintendents of eight selected
school districts were contacted and asked to identify newly
elected trustees. Twelve such persons were identified and invited
to participate in the study. Two persons were unwilling to do so.
One trustee participant was from an urban public school
district, two from a county system, two from a Catholic separate
jurisdiction, one from a small Roman Catholic public district, two
from a medium sized Catholic separate district, one from a medium
sized school division, and one from a small rural division. Thus,
the eight sampled school districts represent a cross section of
the types of governance structures and jurisdictions found in
Canada and Alberta.
The three interviews with each new trustee lasted, on
average, about 2 hours each. Each interview was audio tape
recorded and transcribed into verbatim transcripts. The interview
protocols were semi-structured and relatively open. They were
also "progressive" in that the second protocol was designed to
test insights gained from analysis of the first interviews, and to
allow trustees to reflect on their experiences since the first
interview. The third interview built in the same way on the first
two.
In the first interview trustees were asked to discuss why
they sought trusteeship, their experiences as candidates, what
they hoped to accomplish as trustees, what they knew about the
system for which they had just become trustee, and what they were
anticipating as key issues they would face. In addition, they
were asked to reflect on first impressions they might have about
other trustees, the superintendent, and the system.
In the second interview they were asked to reflect primarily
on the nature of trusteeship as they had experienced it, the kinds
of decisions they were being asked to make, the sources of
opposition and support they sensed were affecting them, what they
were learning about themselves and the system, and how they
thought they were getting along in their new roles.
In the third interview they were asked to reflect on the
major successes and failures of the prior year, on the way the
entire board worked, on any changes they had had in perceptions,
and on what changes, if any, they had made in their own tactics
and strategies. As well, they were asked to discuss what they
anticipated would be key issues for them in the second year. They
were also asked to provide a kind of summing up of their
experiences. Each interview protocol had 18-25 general questions
of this type.
Data analysis followed five inductive steps. First, broad
themes across participants in the interviews were identified.
Second, all conversation about those themes was color-coded in the
transcripts of each trustee. Third, all conversation about a
theme from all the trustees was combined and analyzed for internal
consistency and general pattern. This process produced, in some
cases, sub-themes within the general themes. Finally, all
conversation which could not be assigned to one of the themes was
analyzed to determine if the "residuals" contained themes not
previously identified. While the earlier work of Stout and
Tallerico influenced the initial identification of themes, the
language of the trustees themselves was allowed to suggest the
themes of this paper. This form of analysis was first discussed
in detail by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and designated as constant
comparative analysis.
THE PARTICIPANTS
Ten of the twelve newly-elected trustees in the eight
selected districts agreed to be included in the research. Only
two had run before for political office and only one had ever
served in an elected post, but not as a school trustee. They
ranged in age from 37 to 60, with the average at 47 years. Seven
men and three women comprised the research group. Seven of them
had at least one university degree and two more had post-secondary
certificates. This demographic profile parallels that found by
Cosh (1994), whose survey of members of the Alberta School Boards
Association shows that of all newly elected trustees, about 40%
were women and 60% men. A study by Jakes (1984) of trustees in
the Ottawa-Carleton area showed that 76% had at least one
university degree.
Two were active educators and two were retired educators.
All were parents of children attending school in the trustee's
school system. Two of the three women worked outside the home,
while the third co-owned a farm. One of the men owned his own
business, while the others were retired, were teachers, or worked
in lower level white collar jobs. All had histories of very
active community service, particularly in youth-related matters.
Five of the new trustees were Roman Catholic, three were
Protestant, one Ukrainian Orthodox, and one would not say. They
were of an age and stage in which people turn to good works as a
source of personal satisfaction. Appendix A provides basic
information about each of the new trustees.
WHY THEY RAN
There was no clear pattern of motive, aside from some form of
generalized interest in schooling and children and, in part, a
positive response to requests from others. A sampling of their
language provides some insight to the generalization that a
decision to run for school board is not motivated by substantial
specific ideology or conviction.
Amanda: Well I'm a mother who has always been very
keen on what's going on in school. I like being at the
school so I can get to know the staff and the teachers.
I like to be involved...I thought what better place to
be involved than at the school board level.
Sara: One, I have always been active as a parent with
regards to my childrens' education, being very
frustrated in that I was never in a position of power
to make effective change. ...I have been proactive. So
finally, the day before nominations someone approached
me and said, "A group of us would like you to run."
which was surprising since I've only been here for nine
months.
Brian: Actually some friends asked me to run. I was
asked six years ago and I declined. I didn't feel I
had enough time for my personal business. Some people
asked me to run again this time and I agreed to.
Amy: I've been involved with schools for the last 12
years. My specialty was bulletin boards....I was
approached actually by a few of the ladies in town who
said I should run [and I declined and went on holiday].
...the last thing that made up my mind was when I saw
who else was running and thought yes I can do better.
Cam: I think it was primarily because we need on all
boards and committees a business voice.
Dan: ...But more importantly I've got some specific
concerns that motivated me as well. One of them is my
experience as a parent with my children in [district]
and to put it really simply and crudely we've been met
in my view with arrogance and insensitivity and I
considered that unacceptable.
Except for Dan, who seemed to have an idea about what is
wrong with schools, these active people declared themselves as
candidates for public office based on generalized notions of their
obligations as good citizens. Their motives, or lack thereof, are
consistent with the data in Stout's 1982 study.
GETTING ELECTED
One of the ten participants was acclaimed, but the other nine
had to run election campaigns. Of the nine, one ran no campaign,
saying:
I really had no strategy. I basically won it on my
past actions, what people felt of me. I didn't
campaign. I had been involved as a local
volunteer...Actually I was quite in the forefront. I
was known in the community. (Brian, a farmer)
The others, though, engaged in the age-old practices of
soliciting votes. Most of the campaigns were kitchen table
operations that involved family and/or friends. Amanda's
constituency was rural and she drove from farm to farm and
distributed a brochure that a friend had typed and printed for
her. In her words, "I figure I hit 98% of the people, although
there was the odd one with a dog I didn't."
Sara focused on families. She participated in two forums and
once attempted to pass out some brochures after church, but she
felt awkward in doing so and quit after distributing but three.
She said that she spent $4.00 on her campaign, and $52.00 after
election to run a "thank you" ad in the newspaper.
The trustees employed all of the standard techniques
including brochures, campaign signs, paid ads in the print media,
door to door canvassing, telephone calling, and attending public
forums. Public forums were universally declared to be the least
effective. They were poorly attended and generally without
sufficient focus to give candidates a sense of good investment of
time.
Some of the candidates were assisted by members of the
Alberta Teachers Association or by local school staff. Cam
discussed how he experienced the influence of the ATA:
We also had loaded guns pointing at us because of the
power of the ATA. When you go to file your papers the
first person you see is the ATA employee with a form
for you to fill out in three days. You can't say no.
Those of us running that aren't educators [Cam is a
businessman] are not going to be able to sit down and
debate ATA people. So I decided to focus on
leadership.
Catholics, running in Catholic Separate School Districts, did
much of their campaigning and brochure distributions after Mass.
As Cam said;
Basically what most people who are campaigning do is
get the O.K. from the various churches and they allow
you to hand out literature at the end of Mass.
Average campaign costs for the nine were about $900. Two,
however, account for the high average. Dave (retired educator)
spent quite a bit as he says;
No. I got serious about the election so I spent more.
About $1500; maybe $1800. Oh really, $2000.
Brochures and signs cost me $1000. Each ad is about
$150 and I put in a telephone line.
Dan (a technical college instructor) had a more elaborate
plan.
What we did was, we decided on a budget that we thought
we could afford and in our case the number we chose was
2500 bucks. And so then we said, given the amount of
money, how can we most effectively spend that money?
In a nutshell we decided to do two things, with signs
and we spent about $700 on signs, and the second item
was brochures. The brochures ran around $1200. We
printed 15,000 brochures and the 15,000 was largely
driven by the budget. I decided to run the night
before nominations closed so for example we had to
start digging up information, like how many people
there were in the ward, and how many voters and all
that kind of stuff.
This set of trustee aspirants ran friends and neighbours
campaigns, essentially devoid of issues. They presented
themselves as friendly, open, family-oriented, concerned citizens.
They tried to avoid being dragged into debates or positions on
specific issues. Perhaps Amy said it best:
Like we talked about that very honestly at one of our
[campaign] meetings and said, "No, don't go make a
statement on condoms in the washroom or French
Immersion or discipline in the schools or things like
that. Because those are the things that people have
very definite views about and you're going to make
enemies. You really don't want to do that when you are
running to get in. If you are faced with it after,
fine, but don't bring up issues that are going to
finish you before you even get started.
GETTING READY TO SERVE
The trustees were asked to reflect on the reasons they had
won.
Cam: My name was second on the ballot. That helped.
I've lived 25 years in the district and my children
went to school and graduated here. I'm a native son,
born and raised a Catholic. My father was a well known
businessman, a high profile guy.
Dave: Being known. My presence in the electoral
district. They know me as a leader; Knights of
Columbus, Community League, etc.
Neil: As I said we were well known in the schools and
in the area through hockey and I think that was what
did it.
Their language reflects the genuinely amateur nature of these
elections; good-hearted, active people being elected by neighbours
and acquaintances who know them in many other contexts. But
notwithstanding the issue-neutral nature of the campaigns, the new
trustees had views about what they were to undertake.
Sara:I would like to inject a corporate vision. I
think in our district it is sadly lacking. An
understanding of, I come from [corporation] training
that is, marketing skills, effective communication
skills, project planning, pay for performance. All
these concepts that I grew up with in the culture of
the corporate world I find sadly lacking in the
educational system. I would like to give that.
Dan: But my view is that in my position within that
system, which is as a trustee, that I think that what
we can do is to start to undertake some initiatives
that will send a clear message to the system that
they're going to respect the opinions and the
participation of those various stakeholders in the
system. Now I think in part that means when we
encounter people within that system who are elitist,
who are authoritarian, and are unprepared to be more
open in their decision making that we have to deal
with that and the way that we have to deal with that is
either to retrain them so that they're more receptive
to those approaches or replace them.
Guy: I think I have a working knowledge of education in
general. I consider myself an educator [he is an
administrator in a neighboring district] first of
all...I understand how education is funded and I'm not
pleased with how it is funded.
Amy: From the parent's point of view I know what I want
and I think what I want is what the majority of
citizens and taxpayers want...I guess by saying how's
it going to benefit my kid, I'm in essence saying how's
it going to benefit my kid and your kid and the kid
next door. I guess basically I'm the parent on the
board.
Brian: Actually, I'm not sure what I can contribute. I
don't know how difficult it is. I have faith in the
bureaucracy in the sense that I know in the end things
get done. I know that government moves slowly,
probably for a good reason. [He then expressed an
interest in seeing a strong vocational/technical
curriculum.]
If educational policy is to be driven by clear agendas and
clear alternatives among competing points of view, these trustees
did not enter the policy arena having given the voters (and
themselves) a clear choice of probable directions. They entered
the arena prepared to do the best they could with personal
experiences as their primary teachers. Having been elected, the
new trustees have little time between election and assumption of
office. But the fact seemed not to concern them, as almost all
expressed a general notion that they wanted to be open-minded when
they took office. As Dave said:
No. I had calls from former trustees who wanted to
tell me what to do and give their views. I felt it was
important to go into this thing open- minded. I tried
to say let me look into things and find out.
But they did nose around a bit. Kirk had heard about busing
problems during the campaign, so he talked to the busing
supervisor. Brian and Guy talked with former trustees. But as
Amanda said:
No. I felt I would learn as I went along. I believe
in earn as you learn because this is a whole new ball
game...I'm doing a lot of listening. What's
interesting is that I see it at a different
perspective, not just on the side of the parent. I see
both sides of the fence and you have to do that,
compromise a little.
ARRIVAL AND EARLY IMPRESSIONS
With no training and little preparation, the new trustee
joins a group that has established administrative leadership and
rules, procedures, and norms for doing business. Although Alberta
calls for all trustees to be elected or re-elected at the same
time every three years, many incumbents are re-elected and are
able to pick up where the board had left off prior to elections.
These new trustees were thrust into dynamic circumstances. Amy
put it most poignantly:
That was very interesting because these people all knew
what was going on except [then names the new trustees].
Of course we don't have the history of it and as it
turned out it was a very tense, very emotional
decision...And the board was split right down the
middle. That was very apparent and being the new kid
on the block it was almost like choosing teams and we
hadn't been around long enough to know which team we
were supposed to belong to.
Nonetheless they are expected to act. And they did get some
preliminary help.
Dan: That was very through and professional. The day
after the election we had a session from 9:00 to 3:00
and went through all the mechanics, like how you're
paid, [Alberta trustees can make up to $30,000 a year,
depending on the number of meetings they attend] what
are the benefits, the parking and the keys. We found
out about the staff and the services that are
available. We got an orientation manual for the
system too. And we all received literature about
trusteeship through pamphlets and a book from Alberta
School Boards Association...We also found out about
some key events like how principals are appointed and
how the budgets are developed.
Kirk: Five meetings within a week and a day. It was
good, I've got to admit that. It was an information
overload but we were introduced to various departments
and the county itself. We had two full days on the
education sector itself. Reams and reams of stuff they
handed to us. Went over their strategic plan. Wrote
down a whole bunch of questions and don't know when
I'll get answers to them.
Dave: We had three meetings dealing with orientation.
We've had lots of stuff dumped on us about
demographics, things like enrollment and finance
trends. We've also had a number of major reports like
the Minister's vision paper.
About ten weeks after elections six of these trustees
attended, as well, an orientation session given by the Alberta
School Boards Association. The combination of district provided
and ASBA provided orientations were generally well received by the
new trustees, although they all complained some about the amount
of required time.
EARLY ACTION
Groups have ways of doing things and the new trustees were
expected to discover them. Lutz (1975) generally defined the
norms of school boards as consensual voting, avoiding questions in
public about the agenda, and learning to work as a team. These
are complex tasks and the new trustees experienced some confusion
during the early going.
Amanda:I found out they didn't tell us a lot. They sort of
assumed that we knew these things. If you didn't know and carry
on, you're always going to be stuck because you didn't ask the
critical question.
Sara: A couple of times I asked for something and they
said "Well, you know we haven't really discussed that.
The Board has to decide that and the Board has to
decide this." So I'm seeing it as very fluid. For
example, on Robert's Rules of Order, in board meetings
we don't have to have anyone second a motion. I keep
meaning to ask them why don't we do that. [The Alberta
School Act provides that a second is not required.]
Kirk: I thought since the board authorized it [a
report], we would proceed with it. I didn't realize
that it was a question of one group [of trustees] not
wanting it.
Amy: I had a substitute teacher call me complaining
that she did not have a teacher's guide and I still
don't know what I'm going to do about it because I
asked the superintendent to check into it. I don't
know what the fine lines are here. I don't know whether
to mention the lady's name or if that means she's
going to get into trouble or exactly what I'm supposed
to do. I mentioned it to the superintendent and he
looked at me as if I'd just fallen off the turnip truck
...I'm not sure if I should have gone to the
superintendent or if it is my jurisdiction to go to
the principal and ask if all his teachers have guides.
Dave: Why I don't give myself a higher rating is that I
still haven't got a grasp on the mechanics necessary
to initiate discussions, effective discussions, on
change on some critical issues the board is going to
face.
Dan: The difficulty is that the necessary takes
precedence over the important. The paper blizzard is
part of, not just the necessity, but also strategy in
terms of keeping trustees occupied so they don't get
involved in some of the broader questions.
New trustees face choices about whether and how to adapt to
the on-going ways of the board (if they can learn them) or whether
and how to change the board routines. These trustees provide
examples of both choices. Amy reported her initial caution:
My father once told me that when you're in a new
situation you shut up and listen and I've been
following that advice and doing a lot of listening. I
find I go into a board meeting with a list of 4
questions on a certain subject and if I keep my mouth
shut long enough someone else asks the questions.
Others began to develop strategies for injecting changes into
the culture of the board. Dave began to have informal discussions
with other trustees:
Secondly is that going to others and informing them of
what the issues are and what your thinking is allows
the other board members to focus on the issue and think
about it...It's a preparation readiness thing which
will lead to a better decision.
Amanda had a more direct tactic: But if that was the
case I would want to give them all the information to
make them believe the way I did. That's why I'm there.
If I'm not doing that, I'm not doing my job.
Neil seemed to have adopted persistence as a tactic:
The board didn't want to deal with it. They said go
and do it yourselves. I thought the board should
support it and we've moved a little bit but not a lot.
I'll bring it up again. It's a continuous thing,
something I work on, leave for a while and then work on
again. Using a strategy of continuous information will
break down some of the concerns they have.
Cam took a direct route to ease his concerns:
I asked the superintendent to FAX me the agenda so
there's no 'gotchas'. Sometimes bureaucrats don't give
you enough information. That way I'd be ready. Let's
get the cards out on the table and be ready. They're
not helping us with the management of the information
they send us for our meetings. So I'm going to ask
them to send it to me more organized.
At this early stage in their terms of office the new trustees
were struggling to understand the nuances of board membership, the
dynamics of influence, and the limits of authority. They were
also making attempts to change board habits and procedures. One
can detect a tinge of frustration but most of the new trustees
seemed willing to make their gains where they could and bide their
time.
REPRESENTATIVES OF WHOM?
As was found by Stout, the difference between citizen and
trustee can be profound. The U.S. school board members
experienced increasing isolation from former acquaintances, and
increasing scrutiny of their lives after election. These
experiences prompted them to reconsider who it was, after all,
they were representing. The sense of rootlessness is exacerbated
by the fact that in the U.S., as in this study, candidates ran
without clear agendas and with only a diffuse knowledge of who had
voted for them.
The newly elected Alberta trustees had similar experiences.
As Amy put it:
I find in schools where I used to be all the time
before I was elected, people would greet me by my first
name and ask how things were going. Now they say good
morning and that's all. I think they're afraid they'll
slip. After my son's game the parents were going for a
drink at the team sponsor's establishment. It's not a
classy place. I had two people say, "So this is where
our elected officials go down to the bar." It was said
jokingly but you have to wonder how much intent is
really there. At first I got my bristles up. I drank
screwdrivers before I was elected and I'll drink them
after. So I ordered a screwdriver but I only had one
and I can't guarantee that before the election I
wouldn't have had two. Then I changed to coffee and I
think I did it because I'm a trustee.
Dave: One trustee wanted to know what could be done in
terms of soliciting input from our ratepayers, our
parents. That question is still on the shelf. We
haven't addressed it. We should so that as individual
trustees we don't become square pegs in round holes and
be totally out of the picture in terms of how we should
be soliciting information. And then we would become
subject to pressure from interest groups and become
parochial in our view of what is good for education in
the district. We must be aware of what is needed in
our own wards but we must not lose the district focus.
Neil: We're overly defensive and it gets people upset.
We stay away from one of our major partners because of
this fear. And that's happened to me. I have this fear
that I'll do something wrong by going there...
Amanda: One of the most difficult ones was where a
ratepayer wanted me to vote his way and I was really
torn. I thought a lot about it the night before and
talked to our superintendent about it. He told me it
was up to me. I could make a political decision or I
could be myself. I told him I had to be honest and be
myself and vote the way I felt was right. So I didn't
make the political decision. I wanted to please the
person but I knew it wasn't the right decision.
Sara: I've become somewhat bitter in that they [voters]
clamored and screamed about various issues and I
grabbed that and said in the election that we must
take this [concerns] from the parking lots and school
hallways and Safeway meat counters and address them. I
go to meetings and put out hooks and no one seizes the
opportunities. And it makes me very angry because
their words and their actions are not consistent.
That's why the communications package is so critical.
These are hard decisions and lessons for unseasoned citizens,
even though they have had practice as community leaders of one
sort or another. Now that they are officials their behaviors and
decisions are authoritative. That fact adds stress to their lives
and helps explain, according to Stout, why they begin to turn more
toward other trustees for validation.
SOME NEW ISSUES
Complexity
While their perceptions of their constituencies were evolving
so were their views about some of the issues. The topics were
different, but the message was the same: "Things are more
complicated that I imagined."
Cam: Part of that is my roots in the 70s and 80s and
because of my business background. You want to cut
costs, you cut costs. I'm now saying I'm a believer in
things like contracting out...I read an article on the
economy and I've changed to the point where I'm saying
we must underline the fact that we are all rowing in
the same boat and the time is coming when we are going
to have the super rich look down on the poor and say
too bad we laid you off. Now I think we have to
involve the people to solve the problem.
Dave: I'm seeing the board's side of it. Because of my
background, I was principal of a school, I thought I
knew everything about what a board does, what the
issues were, but you get to see the other side. You
get to see the side that can have an effect on the
district as a whole as opposed to an effect on
education in a community. There were avenues as a
principal, through the administrator's association,
through the ATA, you could influence the direction of
education. As trustees you have a much more direct
link to influencing education.
Neil: I think I have a better understanding of the
complexities we're dealing with in terms of the funding
of education and how we can change it. I really
believed at the start that we could just change it. We
don't want to inflict pain on the children by just
changing it. The further you are from the children the
more pain you ought to be able to absorb. At first I
thought you could make the changes at the school level.
Now I think we have to draw back and make the changes
at the board and administration levels which will
filter down, on a go forward basis, to the classroom.
Amy: That is before I got in and started learning about
assessments and M. and E. [Machinery and Equipment] tax
and corporate pooling and budgets and negotiating with
teachers. All of a sudden whether that kid lives three
blocks away and gets picked up by a bus or not is small
peanuts. I guess when you get in and see the big
picture, I hate to say the big worries, it's a lot
bigger and there are a lot of things that seem more
important than having one parent angry because of
busing or something. That I would have thought was
very important las April. So I guess when things get
put into perspective there are bigger problems.
Teachers
Although some of the new trustees were former teachers and
members of the Alberta Teachers Association, it was of interest
that most of the new trustees used the reference "they" when
discussing teachers, particularly in the context of collective
bargaining. The new trustees were asked to describe their
interactions with teachers and any changes in views they might
have had. Some of the new trustees had new views.
Brian: When you're in business for yourself you go to
the school of hard knocks. If your income is down then
your expenses had better go down. Teachers have to
learn to work with others and understand their
viewpoint. In our district the school board and the
teachers have a decent relationship. Some [teachers]
are married to farmers and that seems to help.
Amy: I like teachers and sometimes I've been given the
impression by other board members that teachers are
greedy and you have to watch out for them; they're in
it for themselves. I was kind of shocked because from
what I've seen of them, there are a few of them who are
there to have the summers off and weekends free but
most of them are there because they are interested in
kids. I still like them.
Sara: I see them more as a disgruntled group than I
ever thought they were. Combative, which is
interesting because I never considered myself, nor am I
now, a teacher basher. I have respect and sympathy for
them but I lose it quickly when I am always being
pounced upon.
Amanda: Sometimes I was disappointed in what little
teachers know about the system. They just do their
job and carry on. Others are probably a little keener
on knowing the inside. I guess you'll always have that.
In our school here we've got some really good teachers.
My kids went through the system and we've had some I
didn't care for but then I found out too they've been
eliminated, either encouraged or coached to leave the
system or different things like that. The ATA is
extremely strong. It's pretty hard to get rid of
teachers.
UNDERSTANDING HOW THINGS ARE DONE
As Stout had argued, one of the key tasks of new trustees is
to try to understand the school board as a working group and how
they fit into the on-going dynamic. One of the questions put to
them asked them to talk about how they assessed their own
performance in the early stages of their tenures in office. They
had no difficulty with the question.
Guy: I'm in the process of developing a good working
relationship with fellow board members and the central
office staff and others that I work with in an official
capacity. As far as performance, I'm not sure how to
rate that. I feel comfortable and I have no problems
although so far we have not dealt with any
controversial issues that have tested my personal
principles. To this point it has been very amicable,
very official. I haven't done a whole lot. A lot has
been routine.
Kirk: I think I'm doing really quite well. That's my
own introspection about it. There are a number of
people who have said that too. That helps.
Sara: I am satisfied with my performance so far. I
have to recognize that change does not occur over
night. I've never been a patient person in that
regard...have made it a full time commitment, not a
hobby. I have done my research and I have brought
about completion to all tasks and made a point of not
addressing something and then leaving it.
Brian: I asked that question of our superintendent the
other day, wondering how I was doing. He just laughed
and said all trustees do a good job. So I guess I must
be doing a good job.
Amy: I don't feel I've done anything. I'm too timid.
I'm too shy...And I don't challenge well. I've watched
other people and they have experience. I keep telling
myself that. I start to challenge but I'm very easy to
get to back off. I'm learning and I have faith in
myself that next year I'll be able to challenge and
follow it right through. For some reason too I think
I'm taking up people's time when I'm speaking and I
definitely have to learn that this is my time.
The Board
Although almost all of the new trustees expressed general
satisfaction with their own performances, they were less sanguine
about the entire board and the way they saw relationships among
trustees.
Cam: There are some hidden agendas going on there which
nobody has come clean on. There has been no
explanation of what this is all about. There is bad
blood somewhere and unfortunately when that is going on
there is a lot of gotcha being played. You don't know
whether you're going to be a victim or part of the
accident that occurs.
Amy: No... [the board is not functioning well]. I'm
not a member of the group either. I'm a member of a
sub-group. It's not a team at the moment. I'd like to
think if there was an outside thing happen we could
come together. I can't say any of the people don't
belong here. None are stupid.
Sara: No, and I don't think it ever will. There is
history between individuals. I'd been told some will
never vote with someone else and I didn't believe it.
It's very true. There are sub- groups but I'm not a
member of them. I've been lucky in that I've been able
to float around from group to group. That's just the
way I like it. I was welcomed to the fold as a new
trustee. There's a lot of "me and you" but it's not in
that context.
Kirk: The other one I've been trying to counter is the
conflict between the urban trustees and the county
councilors, who are all trustees, and this is far more
difficult because there is a tradition of alienation, a
feeling amongst the urban trustees which goes back for
a number of years in that they are not as significant
players in this whole education scene. The inequity
they see is that there is not sufficient attention
paid to educational business by county councilors and
at the same time they want to control the direction of
education, especially in the financial area.
Neil: It's functioning as a group. It's not
functioning as a team. I make a very distinct
difference in that. It's partly too many individual
agendas that have not been formulated into an agenda
for the school board. We haven't done that type of
planning yet and for three year terms I'm not sure you
can. With going to board meetings only once a week for
a three year term and with something as diverse as
education, I'm not sure you could be functioning as a
team. Maybe you should function as a group of
individuals with individual agendas.
Dan: It's starting to come together as a group but it's
a slow process. In the formation of groups I see two
group orientations; namely, the social orientation and
the task group...What I see is that we're coming
together in a way that is more on the social side.
I'll have a better sense of this between now and the
fall. If we don't start to tackle some of the major
issues by next fall I suspect we will continue as a
social group. There are groups within the board that
on the political scale range from progressive to small
c conservative. The more conservative faction, which
with one exception tend to be the older members, are
more predisposed to coming together in what I call an
old boys type of context. Interestingly enough the
newer ones are less concerned about coming together
socially than they are in getting on with addressing
issues.
Ed. - End of Part 1.
Click here to continue to Part 2.