001Welcome to our IASB webinar running for the school board 101 essential tips for candidates. To those of you who are joining us live or those watching the recording, thank you so much for your potential interest in running for the school board or in some cases re-running for the school board and serving on a school as a school board member. Today our plan is to provide you with key information related to board service and really to help inform your decision to run. So we're going to just be talking about some high-level uh helpful information for you. Um this webinar is being recorded and will be posted on our IASB website along with the PowerPoint and a resource a couple resources that Catherine's going to share in a little bit. All four of our candidate webinars and
002resources will be posted on our school board election web page. So uh whether you get a chance to view those live or um as a recording, that's where that you can find those. So thank you for being here, those of you here today. My name is Lou Kvist and I'm on our board development team. I'm a board development director and I'm happy to be working with two of my colleagues today and I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves. So how about we start with you, Tammy? Hi friends, Tammy Drawba. I'm part of the board uh development team. So excited that you are all here to join us uh and learn more uh about or refresher about what it might look like uh to be a school board member as you think about putting your
003hat in the uh ring for election. I did that for a few years. I highly recommend it. I'm going to pass to my friend Catherine who's going to introduce herself. Hi everybody, I'm Catherine Solon, um the latest uh add as a board development director to the team. I'm really excited to be here and um happy to be working with and meeting with all of you today. Thank you so much, Catherine, and we are so excited that we have two practitioners with us today, two currently serving board members, if that's grammatically correct, who um have uh agreed to join us and take time out of their busy schedule to share insights and guidance for you along the way. So let's first ask Sandy, would you please introduce yourself? Hi everybody, I'm Sandy Fandel, um a retired
004nurse of 40 years, 20 of which was the school nurse at Estherville Lincoln Central, where where I'm on my eighth year as a board member. Um I'm vice president this year and we have a little over 1,100 students in our school. Thank you, Sandy, and Nate. Hi, I'm Nate Gruber. I'm a member of the Cedar Falls Schools uh Board of Education. I was elected in 2019 for the first time and was re-elected in 2023. Um I currently work at the in the registrar's office at the University of Iowa, but I am have previously been a certified teacher, um substitute teacher, uh school parent, uh board member for a non-profit preschool. So my experience in education has run pretty broad and pretty deep in some instances. Thank you to you both so much for again being
005here and willing to share uh your own experiences to add um some dimension and um a little bit more meaning to our conversation today. Um and for helping our audience really understand what it's like to run for the school board and some things to think about. And speaking of our audience, Catherine, I think you're going to share uh some tips about participation today. I am. Thanks, Lou. Um yeah, so we have built in a couple different options for you to participate in our learning together today. Um we have several quick polls that will run throughout um just to check in and gather some perspective with all of you regarding the topics we'll discuss today. Um so please plan on participating in those. Um and then we'll also be monitoring the chat feature. Um you should
006see a chat icon probably along the bottom of your screen. Um so please submit questions at any time and we'll do our best to answer those um as we go along. We'd love to hear from you. So um with that, I'm going to go ahead and launch our first poll today um just to get an idea of who's joining us. Catherine, thanks for launching that poll. Friends, you um you have a couple of choices that are uh on the screen. To note, we can't see specifically how you are um voting, if you will, or what option you're choosing, but it does give us a sense of who's on the call and helps us think about our conversation. So you're thinking about running for the school board, maybe you haven't quite decided. I have decided that
007I'm going to run. Um number three is I'm not running, but I like to learn about the work of the school board. I would say who doesn't like to learn the work, by the way. Um I'm a current board member. I'm a superintendent. And the last option is I'm a school business manager and or a board secretary. So those are your options. It looks like uh Lou, we've got some nice variety uh that is um coming in. And it looks like we sit between uh about 24, 25% have said I have decided I am going to run, which is awesome. There's a small percentage that's not sure yet. You'll be sure by the time we're done. I'm certain you'll want to say yes. Um and then it looks like we have some current board members
008on, which is awesome as well. And uh another split between some of our ever important school business managers and board secretaries. So we're grateful they're uh there to join us. Lou, do you want to set the stage for what we're going to learn today? Yes, thank you so much, Tammy. So again, this PowerPoint, it's going to have some live links to it. It will be posted on our website. Um so you can refer back to it as a resource for you. Today we're going to be uh exploring some foundational elements of school board service. And the first uh tip that we're going to talk about is the authority of the board. What is it big picture and what's the difference between the authority as an individual and authority as a team member on a board
009as a board? And then we'll be looking at a very high level, what is the role of the board? What is governance and what does that look like compared to the role of the superintendent and staff? Then we're going to barely dip our toes into the district school finance water. Not going to go really deep. Uh so we're going to touch a little bit on some key understandings related to that topic. And then we really want you to think about board service. What is the time commitment? Um that's going to be something something really important for you to understand as you consider board service. And then some tips around what you how you can approach learning more about your district. You may be doing that already, but you may learn some additional things about what
010you what you may want to think about learning. And then we'll talk about some resources and some tips around filing and running as a candidate. So those are our big picture um uh takeaways for today. And I think Tammy, you're going to start us off with the very first one. I am. Thanks, Lou. Um let's talk about understanding the authority um of the board. I know the first time I ran as a board member, I really wasn't quite sure what I was getting into, but I quickly learned that the board works together. So if you have a five-member board or a seven-member board, you are working as a whole um together and you're doing that at the board table. That's probably one of the most important pieces um you have said that you're you've published
011that you're going to have a meeting. You're having great conversations in the view of the public. And we know that that isn't always easy to do, but by law, uh when you meet together, uh the public gets to hear uh those conversations that you're that you're having. There are a few specific instances and they're pretty narrow on when the board can um publish that they're going to have a closed session. So the majority of your conversations and deliberations will be in the view um of the public. It's also a great opportunity to be able to hear from each other and it will be how you will also get a sense and understanding um from your peers. There are procedures in place about um how the um the public might approach the board, um but those
012are very specific during a meeting and it's it's not a time for a back and forth with the board. It's a common misconception what the authority uh of the board looks like uh and what it really is. Uh we often hear that the community may think that once you are a board member that there are lots of things uh that you get to do. I always like to say chocolate milk in all the drinking fountains. Um and independently, that is not a decision a board member makes. Um decisions are again, they're made together um with that full uh full authority of the board. And another topic that we'll just talk a little bit about is through those conversations that you're going to have at the table, you get to hear from your peers on topics
013um and you get to learn from your peers before the board votes. It might feel difficult to walk into the board meeting and say, "I don't know how I'm going to vote." But that is the feeling that we want you to have. That you are listening to content that is being presented to you. That you're having conversation with your peers. That you're getting to ask great questions. So the public hears you digesting all of that information and learning from each other. And that also means that you are getting to learn together as a full board as you're making those making those decisions and asking great questions. We caution board members to say that you're not making promises as you're running for the board or talking about I'm going to change X. I want to champion
014Y. Those may be things that you're very interested and passionate about and that's wonderful. But you will be working with your full board and you are only one member of that team in the decisions that you make. So we say you are just one vote, one of five or one of seven. So what we would say is give yourself time to learn. Give yourself time to There are a lot of things that you will be learning as a new board member and give yourself time to do that and ask great questions at the table with your with your peers. Lou, I think that's enough for me. I think it's time to hear from our from our board members that we've asked to join us today. Thank you, Tammy. Yes, so we're going to ask Sandy
015and Nate now to chime in and give us some things to think about from their perspective. And Sandy, let's start with you. What What guidance would you have for folks around the authority of the board? You know, when a a constituent approaches me about something, I as as Tammy says, I always start out with, "Well, I'm only one board member. I don't have authority to to to pass that or to do this." Whatever they're talking to me about. And so I I find often times that that is a misconception. They think I could do anything. And so I I also have become very familiar with our chain of command. There you probably have a policy on that. You'll want to know that. And I encourage them to use their chain of command. It usually isn't
016to jump right to a school board member. Um So I learned a lot at the board table. When I go in, like Tammy said, you may not know what you're going to how you're going to vote. And somebody might say something in our discussion and I thought, "Oh, oh, I've never thought of that." And it might totally have changed what how I really thought I might vote. So it's it's really very important that the board discusses things together. We're a five-member board. Um And so that's three of us are a are a quorum and a and a yes vote to pass things. Thank you so much for sharing, Sandy. Nate, what would you like to add to to this topic for those considering board service? Yeah, I think one of the most important points that
017was made a few minutes ago was that um you are not your authority as an individual board member there really isn't any. You You only operate as that group, five-member or seven-member board like in my case. Um And don't over-promise things or promise things at all if you're out there talking to people on the doors during your campaign. Again, um what I found you know, if you're coming in trying to if you have an agenda that you're trying to accomplish on during your service on the school board, I would temper that quite a bit because again, as the board works as a whole you're one member of that and what you will kind of find is that the even the authority of the board is quite restricted by and prescribed by state law. So there's
018a limited amount of things that you can get done as a board member or even as a board. Um One thing that I found particularly interesting in some of my first uh uh learning sessions with IASB was distinction between a public meeting and a meeting in public. A public meeting kind of in implies that people in attendance are a participant in the meeting. You know, the discussion back and forth that was mentioned. Whereas school boards, they hold their meetings in public. Public are free to come in and watch, but they're not necessarily a part of the meeting unless the board has a section for like public comment and the policies around that are going to depend on the board itself. And Nate, thank you and to both you and Sandy for sharing and absolutely the
019last thing you shared is something that we talk about that it it's the board's meeting in the public and the board needs to conduct its business. And so that's something that we'll go deeper into our Ready, Set, Govern workshop which Catherine and and Tammy are going to talk about in a little bit. But thank you so much for both both of you have sage experience and insights. By the way, if you have any additional questions, remember to go ahead and use our chat feature. Put them in and then we'll be watching and fielding those along the way as Catherine there said earlier. So let's go on to our next topic which actually is a poll. Catherine, Tammy? Let's have only those running for the board respond to this one. I'm going to launch this one
020for you to plug in your quick answers. And I will remind you we don't know how you individually vote, so it's okay. Whatever way Whatever way you answer is just fine. And I'm watching the numbers grow. Looks like Looks like we have a small percentage who have said people have already asked me to promise that I'll vote a certain way on a specific issue or topic. Maybe they didn't Oh. Can I wait Can people are still voting? Should we wait until Catherine launches the poll results? Oh, absolutely. I just did that. Sorry. I didn't want to break into what Tammy was saying. I just published it. I saw it slow down. Okay. I was just going to say people may not say those exact words, right? It might not be, "Will you Will you promise
021me you'll do?" But there may be some language that feels like that's what you're asking. Lou, it it looks like Looks like we have a lot of folks who have said, "Nope, I'm Nobody has asked me that." So I think you're going to talk us through the role of the board. >> It It is interesting though that a few people have been um have been visited with ask people wanting to ask board members to do things and that's really not surprising, is it, Tammy? Because what we find is even brand new school board members are the ones that tend to get the most phone calls from uh public wanting them to help solve problems or often times it's the brand new board members. So we're not really surprised that some of you have already been
022approached. But good thinking just to have in the back of your mind that um you are only one vote. Sorry, Tammy. Thank you so much. Um great insights. Uh yeah, so let's roll to the next tip. And this is to learn about board. And we really think it's important for brand new board members to think about your role as a governance body. And if you were to approach and talk to any former or current school board member, most will tell you that the public does not really understand the role of the board. Because we don't walk around normally um approaching our daily lives through a governance level. We're action oriented and we're doers. But on the board, it's important for you to always maintain a high bird's-eye view of the district. You are the only
023group that has that viewpoint. And so it's important to think about as you're operating as a governmental body, you're looking at the district as a whole. Okay? You hire your superintendent and staff to do the close-up day-to-day work. But you as a body are looking across your whole district. And so let's take a analogy and and do some comparisons. So we have this beautiful garden landscape. And think about this as your district. As a board, you're up above looking at your whole garden. So you can see big picture of what's happening. And if you think about what can you see in this photograph? You can see beautiful colors and you can see some different greens, light greens and dark greens. You see pops of purples and reds. You can see tall things and little things,
024bigs and littles. You can see a beautiful flowing pattern of the pathway that goes beyond and lots of other things. This is what we like to say is board work looking at a governance level. Okay? So a question that you may ask at the governance level is this. How is our garden doing overall? What challenges you um encour- uh encountering? What supports do you need from us to make this uh better? You may ask another question like, "How much does our fertilizer cost uh per year?" Or um how often do you fertilize? These are examples of a governance level question. Whereas uh when you zero in on some of the things that you heard earlier about that the staff has their own specific work, um so does the school the superintendent and staff are are
025zooming down at a local close level. So, they're zooming in and looking at the flower closely. They can see the petals, they can see the stems, they can see the bees, the butterflies. They're asking themselves, "Which of these flowers need more fertilizer? Which of these flowers might need additional resources like water or trimming?" They may be looking to say, "How are bigs doing? How are littles doing? What's the trend over time?" So, it's really important to think about in your governance role, you have a specific and distinct role and responsibilities in partnership with the superintendent with whom you've empowered to do the day-to-day work. So, it's really helpful to be thinking about some of those common misperceptions about the role of the board and I'm going to ask Catherine to go a little bit deeper
026into what that might look like. Thanks, Lou. I just that analogy is so beautiful. I really really appreciate that. Um as you mentioned, Lou, um in general the public doesn't understand role of the board a lot of the time. So, um again, that means board members many times will be asked to do something um uh by a community member. Um a concrete example like, "Help help get my child into this specific teacher's classroom." Um that's not the role of the board, that's the role of staff. Um so, it will be important to always be ready to guide people back to the appropriate staff in instances like that. Um Not only that, as a candidate um and later as you become board members, it's something you'll keep coming back to in your work with one another
027and in in your interactions with the public then as well. Um that is just so important to continually keep in mind that you as a board operate at that high aerial level um with the the governance level um in mind. So, it's a delicate balance you'll be finding with each other and the public um on an ongoing basis. Thank you, Catherine. And so, I think now we're ready to hand it back over to um our experts, our practitioners. Nate, I think we're going to start with you this time. What would you add? >> yeah, for me as a especially when I came on the board back, you know, almost in 2019, I think for me going from candidate to sitting board member, the hardest thing was um adjusting to that governance role because again, you
028know, a lot of people who run for office, they they want to get things done and they want to be doers. And that you come into that situation and realize that, you know, you're not going to be the one making those granular decisions at the district level. That's you know, um I have a board colleague who likes to, you know, simply frame the role of the board as we hire, evaluate, and if needed fire the superintendent. We and then we empower that that superintendent to uh do what he needs to do or he or she needs to do to run the district. Now, you know, what uh something I would like to just emphasize is just because you're in a governance role doesn't mean you can't ask questions of the superintendent, of his staff, his
029team just to get the pulse of things how things are going on that district level or even at the school level. You know, just because you can't have a direct effect or you're not the one specifically making that decision doesn't mean you can't ask them about it and just get, you know, that's part of your governance role is to ask those questions to make sure that things are going the way the board would like them to go. Thanks, thanks, Nate. Absolutely, the board does have at a very important governance role in terms of setting the direction, um providing the supports, and then monitoring throughout. So, asking good questions is always um a very helpful part of that practice. Sandy, what else would you say about um the the authority of the board or um learning
030about the role of the board? Um you know, I guess one of the things that we did as a board um that I think is a good example of the governance was we had a uh work session that IASB helped us work through what our uh mission statement was and the goals. We set three goals for the district. And then um we base our policies on achieving those goals and that's what we're expecting the superintendent and his staff to accomplish. And we do um the on our board agendas each month, we have goals attached to each agenda meeting uh agenda item. And that kind of keeps us um on the straight and narrow and not veering away from our different policies and and items that we want to um achieve. And that's worked pretty good.
031Um th- Thank you, Sandy. I think sometimes board members hear what they are not allowed to do and don't recognize all the important um work that they do do that significantly make a difference. And Tammy, I think we have a question So, thank you both for sharing. Tammy, I think we had a question in chat. Did you want to address that? >> We do. We have a great question in chat. And so, it says, "Is the role of the board then to address the stomach issues rather than individual issues?" And because I love analogies, I'm going to go back to Lou's garden. I'm going to say, "Yes." So, if the question is um why isn't the garden the full garden growing? That would be a beautiful question for the board to talk about versus "I
032really don't like purple and there was a lot of purple. Can we add more colors?" That would be probably a conversation for whomever is taking care of the garden uh who would have the expertise in that. So, from a board perspective, it is that What is that that governance level? What is that bigger picture of what we want uh to accomplish. And there are also um there are also policies in place that would tell us that some of those individual issues, especially if they start to deal with people, um what that looks like from We use the term chain of command often in our policies, but what that would look like. So, Chad, I hope Thank you for asking a great question and I hope that answers your question. Thank you, Tammy. Yeah, I'd like
033to say that that is one of the hardest things to learn how to deal with as a board member is when you have your constituents writing in because they have a specific uh concern about something that affects them personally and, you know, the important thing is to redirect them to that chain of command, but it doesn't make you want to try to, you know, you you want to try to help that person as much as you can, but again, that's just not the authority or the responsibility of a board member. And so, that, you know, you can write back to them, communicate then, let them know that you have received their message and listen to them and I'm going to help you as I can through the appropriate channels. Thanks so much and that's also
034something that is covered um in our Ready Set Govern workshop. It's also a good conversation that your superintendent and board team will likely be having with you just to understand and support you on how to navigate and support the communication channels in your district. So, beautiful um advice and thanks to everyone. Let's move on and I believe we have another poll, Tammy and Catherine. Catherine, as you kick off that poll, I'm going to just address one other question that came through in chat because my friend Nancy, she's getting the gold star for today. Everybody gets the gold star, but Nancy says, "Hey, I haven't heard a mention about the board's role in policy setting." Um and we're going to touch on that briefly. If only we could meet for like 6 hours, we would give
035you all the good stuff uh you need to know, but Nancy brings up a great point about uh the board the board is also setting policy. We'll touch just briefly on that, but it that is that is the guiding um guiding elements for the district. So, poll three, Catherine, you've launched it. They're well on their way to answer, which is beautiful. And by the way, we would ask that all participants answer this. So, not just if you're running for the board. So, even my SBO friends uh that are watching, we would ask that you answer as well. So, what do you believe reflects the community members' general understanding of the role of the board? And your choices are Hey, the community's got it. They fully understand it. Uh the second one is, some community members
036might understand. And the third one, by the way, gets a little bit bigger in your responses, a few community members might understand. And the fourth option was, this is something I'm just learning. I don't know how well community members really understand the role of the board. So, Katherine, I haven't seen anything jump too much. >> No, I'm going to I'm going to share the results here. There we go. Beautiful. So, it looks like uh we have a we have a strong majority of of you that have said number three, a few community members understand um the role of the board, which is that it all of these, by the way, are beautiful statements. And then you're split between number two, some community members understand the role of the board, and some who said, I'm just
037learning this. I don't know how well my community um understands the role. And sometimes that uh sometimes it can also be a little hard uh to gauge. I think our next riveting topic, by the way, is we move right to school finance. Unless Katherine or Lou have anything they want to add to that poll. Uh no, we do have a question, but I think we'll we'll continue to move forward and then we'll come back and and ask address the questions as they come in. But I've been so excited for you to share more insights on school finance for today, Tammy. And I'm just kidding. Obviously, it's not my fault. I can't see my friend Tom Anderson's face, but he uh spent a lot of time teaching me in the world of school finance. So, he
038may be slightly concerned that I get to be the one that talks about understanding district finances. School finance is unlike anything else you will ever encounter. That's what I will say. I will also tell you it was never my strongest subject as a board member, and I was incredibly grateful to have very strong SBOs who really carefully led me through the many questions I have. But here are some really some some big pieces that I would talk about. Um enrollment is probably one of the biggest influencers um to your uh district's budget. Your the number of students um enrollment becomes really really important. Um equally, if you have students that are leaving your district, and that happens, by the way, you have some usually that are coming in, you have some that are enrolling out.
039Um the money is going to follow the student. So, I would tell you if you don't have a sense of what your enrollment looks like in your district, it would be a beautiful question to ask your superintendent. What does our enrollment look like, or what have our trends been? That becomes really important. We talk about finances being um silos or separate pots, or sometimes I say buckets of money. If anyone um that has joined us today is familiar with farming at all, you do not mix your corn and your beans, because it will impact you dramatically when you go to drop them off at the elevator. Well, the law is very clear, you do not mix your pots of funding. So, it may look like in a pot or a bucket you have all kinds
040of money. And you may say uh why aren't we paying XYZ, why aren't we paying someone more money? You can't always just take from that pot and use it for salaries. There are very specific things um that uh in how you can spend money. One of the pockets that you may hear about is pebble. And if you hear someone say pebble, as in a rock, that's not it's pebble, and it stands for physical plant and equipment levy. And as an example, that uh particular pot of money means uh I can use that in um uh for a very specific purpose, for uh physical building, I can use it for equipment I'm going to buy. I can't take money out of there and pay salaries. Uh the law does not the law does not allow that.
041And so, it can be confusing when you look at that. The school year uh runs July 1st through June 30th. So, we have just started um a new year. And by the way, if you think about uh property tax funds that come to you, those are going to come to you in uh September, October time frame. Uh that's not always just an automatic as soon as you write your check and pay your taxes, the piece that goes to the district does not automatically just go immediately to the district, either. So, learning that time frame becomes really important. I would say um that the one thing that you can do is please, please, please uh ask your superintendent, ask your SBO lots of questions. And while it's absolutely okay to ask questions at the board table,
042I would also say give your superintendent and your SBO time to say, hey, here's things that I would like to learn. Um and give yourself time to be able to do that independently. I would say off camera, that would let me ask all the questions that I wanted to ask and feel a little bit more confident when I came to the table. Um your friends at IASB will also have We have a whole finance team, and they will also during Board Con, you'll have opportunities that you can also learn about finance. So, don't be intimidated by it. It's a really important piece uh of what you will need to understand. Katherine, um I'm going to let you wrap this up, and I hope I didn't take all the goody out of all the things. No,
043no, of course not. Um yeah, I would just say that um again, just kind of reiterate that it is a really common thing to hear from board members that district finances are just a really big area to get your mind wrapped around. Um so, if you go on to choose to run and are elected, just please give yourself grace, keep in mind um it is just going to take time to learn. So, be persistent, be patient with yourself. Um remember that even the most seasoned board members um say they continue to learn about school finance. Uh so, speaking of seasoned board members, um for those of you who do go go on to join a board, um you know, as as uh Tammy mentioned, don't be shy about leaning into those experienced members um of
044your board for their insights, their guidance, advice, um that mentorship is just an incredible learning resource. And your superintendent and SBO as well, of course. Um and also, as Tammy mentioned, there are a lot of other resources available to you, too. Um to just be a little more specific about it, um I'd encourage you to look into IASB's precon offerings um on Wednesday, November 19th here in Des Moines. Um we'll have some sessions that could be really helpful for you, um as well as the rest of Board Con um that week. In addition, um our website is filled with really robust, terrific tools. Um if staff, we um your board development team and others other experts here are just a phone call away when you need us. And um your district's business manager and superintendent
045again again are great resources that are um always available for continued support to you. Um Lou, I think we're going to go back to Sandy and Nate to share their insights on this. Lou, do you want me to jump in the chat real quick? Sure, right before we go to Sandy and Nate. Thanks, uh Tammy. I think you're seeing maybe a question in chat. Yeah, there's a couple different things. One of the questions is, so each Iowa student gets about eight If you are a student, you are given about $8,000 from the state to educate you in your district. It's actually 7,998, I think. So, for rounding purposes, let's just call it 8,000. And the question is, if a student leaves the district, does that funding follow the student? And the answer to that is,
046it does. Um now, it's also important to remember the budget, when it's approved, is a year ahead. So, it's a little bit like you're trying to forecast something you haven't seen yet. I'm just I'll I'll say it that way. So, if you don't know that you may be losing students, you don't know what those funds are, but the funds will follow the student where the student goes. Um there was one other question just around teacher shortage and bringing suggestions to the to the table. And I would say um having that conversation with your superintendent is great, uh but I would also say, don't assume that they haven't had lots of conversations already around what that looks like. So, I would maybe approach that more with tell me about what's our what's our um how are
047we retaining and attracting uh staff versus, hey, I've got some really great ideas for you. But I would pose the question first, and understand what ha what have we been done. Um could be a great opportunity for the full board to learn together at the table, but I'd give my superintendent a heads-up. I wouldn't just pop that question uh into a meeting. Thank you so much. Let's uh go to Sandy and Nate now regarding talking understanding district finances. And who are we starting with this time? Are we starting with Is it you, Sandy? I think so. Okay. Um and I'm not sure that I can add anything more than what you ladies have so expertly added. Uh just that don't be discouraged if it is a little overwhelming to you. Um as I had said
048earlier, I I worked at the school for 20 years and I understood very little of it. So, I went to the IASB convention classes. You can take them more than once, which I have done. I'm thinking, "Oh, I don't quite remember this part." And and um they're great and and again, this superintendent and your SBO wonderful resources if you have any questions. Thank you, Sandy. Nate, what would you like to add? Yeah, I would like to echo pretty much all of that as a for me, this was one of the more difficult things to pick up as a board member. Um IASB's workshops at convention and stuff helped immensely, but it was still I was heading into at least my third year, maybe into my fourth year where I was, you know, going up for
049re-election where I felt like I could, you know, have a one-on-one chat with someone incompetently talk about how school financing works in Iowa. Now, that said, like once you kind of have a grasp of those basics, it really does make a lot of sense. There's a lot of logic built into it. It's just learning those how those pieces work together uh can take some time and some effort on your part. Um I I love the corn and soybeans mixture that um was mentioned earlier. It's something our our SBO uses a lot with the silos and mixing corn and beans. Uh the challenge sometimes is when like you hear about um the teacher, you know, like teacher retention and shortages and things like that. And you know, maybe your district's also putting up a fantastic new
050facility, like mine was. And so, you get questions like, "Well, we're building We're spending how much on the building and yet we still can't increase teacher pay to help make them stay?" You know, it's very important that that siloing of that money is just you can't, you know, capital fund and like if you uh bond and have capital fund to help build that building, well, you can't move that money around. You know, that's probably not hard to understand, but it's something that is not well known. Mhm. Likely not well known in your community. Thanks so much, Nate. Iowa school finances so unique, even people with um background in business or accounting find it or banking find it interesting change. It's still very different. So, all to say, it's something that you'll just want to continue
051to learn about. So, thank you so much, everyone, for your contributions to that important topic. Let's do a quick poll, Tammy and uh Catherine, about enrollment trends. And I think, Lou, on this one, uh we're going to ask those that are considering running to um answer this one. So, your choices are uh What is your your The question is, what's your level of understanding about your district's uh student enrollment trends over the past few years? And the first answer is, I've got a good level of understanding. I know what they look like. I could tell my neighbor. Uh the second option is, I've got some understanding, but I need to learn more. Uh I'm not very confident in describing my trends to my neighbor. And the third one is, I don't have an awareness of
052enrollment trends and I need to learn uh what they are. Uh I couldn't I would not have that conversation with my neighbor. And again, we cannot see who's answering in what method, but um watching the numbers click along still a little bit. Catherine, you're seeing them, too. I'll I'll ask you to um I am seeing them. They've slowed down a little bit here, so I think uh we'll end this in just a couple seconds to give the last few people a chance. I think I'm going to go ahead and publish. Awesome. So, it looks like about half of you said, "I have a pretty good understanding of what your the enrollment trends look like." And kudos to you uh if you know that, that is fabulous. I Well, I always wanted to see, "What does
053it look like for this year?" By the way, we don't know this year yet because the count isn't done until October. Uh but I always wanted to know what the current year was, and what I will tell you is looking back is just as important in understanding what's been happening in the last 5 to 10 years. Um and by the way, in the state of Iowa, there are lots of districts, not all, but there are lots of districts that are seeing uh an enrollment trend that is uh making it's going downward. Some of that is this might be shocking, but it's also related to birth rates. What's happening in your What's happening in your communities? Um and then you're split. The next one is, "Yeah, I've got a pretty good understanding, but I don't I
054don't know that I'd be super confident and be able to um uh explain this to my uh neighbor." And by the way, you don't have to be an expert in that. And you know, Nate said, "Once you dig in." And Sandy, too. Uh I'm also a product of you can repeat the classes more than once. It's really helpful. I could probably stand to do it a few more times. Um once you start to get a handle on that, that's great, but you don't have to know all the answers. You can always You can always say to a community member, "Hey, that's a great conversation. You should reach out to the district. Somebody could walk you through that content." So, Catherine, uh I think I pass it to Lou. That's what I think I do. Thanks,
055Tammy. Appreciate it. All right, here's something Here's all of these uh tips are really important, and they're not in any particular order. Just another one that we really want you to be thinking about the time commitment and approach board service with your eyes wide open about the expectations and responsibilities that you're taking on. Um if you choose to when you choose to run, they I I correct that, Tammy, not if, but when. And if you win uh your election, uh it's really important to understand that um board service means more than just meeting once a month. In fact, board members laugh when we say, "Well, you're just meeting once a month, right?" And it's a it's kind of an inside joke. No, there's it's a lot more work than that. Some board teams meet monthly.
056Some board teams meet twice a month. In addition to that, though, most board teams have other meetings that board members are required to attend, such as sometimes there's a board workshop. Or it's not an action um agenda, but it's an agenda where the board and superintendent are taking time to learn more deeply together. And those are the kind of workshops that IASB come and do at your board table. There's other um So, there's a lot of uh time at the board table that you'll be spending together. There's also standing committees that you may be appointed to or asked to serve on that meet either monthly or as needed throughout the year. And sometimes board members are asked to join maybe a community advisory group. Uh so, there's a lot of uh work at and around
057the board table that oftentimes the community doesn't see. Uh we mentioned this earlier, but it's worth repeating. Um as you get ready for a board meeting, let's say your board meetings are on Monday, uh likely your um you would receive a packet from your superintendent and board secretary maybe on Thursday, maybe Friday, and you'll have a few days um and evenings to re- to get ready and review that packet, read through the materials, and prepare for the board meeting. It's helpful when you do that. If you have any questions, shoot them over to your superintendent, so they can help understand what your questions are and maybe answer your question in advance or be prepared to answer your question in the board meeting, so we're not catching them off guard. That's really a helpful communication practice
058between your board uh board team and your superintendent. Board members will tell you that they can tell board members who have not read through and prepared for the meeting in advance due to the kinds of questions that are asked. So, even if it's Sunday night, you're going to need to carve out some time to get ready for those board meetings. It's really an important part of the process of being an effective board member. And as um Tammy and Catherine and others have said, continue to engage in IASB in learning. Our mission is to equip, support, and inspire school board members. That's what we are we um are here to serve. So, stay connected with the IASB. We had a good question in chat. Um do we have uh digital learning? And most of our learning,
059I would say, is in person. We do offer webinars. We do have a robust set of materials on our website. Um but for a lot of reasons, we do a lot of our work uh in person, including coming right to your board table. But, also, our phone consultation is free. So, you can always give us a call and we're right there to help you. And if we don't have the answer, we'll get you to the content expert that um that that can help you. But, stay connected to IASB and continue to learn along the way. That's one of our biggest tips for you. Let's uh move to hearing from Nate and Sandy around the time commitments and expectations. Nate, what would you like to say for to board members? >> my board is one of
060those that meets twice a month. We're scheduled for the second and fourth uh as a rule of thumb, scheduled for the second and fourth Mondays in a month. Um it's really important if you're looking to serve on the school board is that you make those commitments a priority in your life if should you be lucky enough to be elected. Um it may not sound like a lot, but you know you know, maybe you were thinking about going away for a weekend and forgot to check the you know, that maybe you're having a board meeting that weekend or and you know, that can affect travel plans. Um my board or our district tries to be considerate of our board's members' time. So, things like work sessions, closed sessions, special are often um scheduled with the meeting.
061So, we have our general board meeting and then we'll go into closed session afterwards. So, you know, a 1-hour meeting on paper may actually be a couple hour meeting that night because you have a closed session that you're going or work session that you need to discuss some things that aren't the at the public table. Um and then we occasionally have special sessions that are called because maybe there's a contract um in the like in the construction of our school high school uh there were a couple times where we needed to approve a contract so that work could get started and couldn't necessarily wait until our next scheduled board meeting. So, and then um you know, there's the expectation of learning I you know, going to IASB conference Board Con or attending webinars, you know.
062My board has the the kind of the expectation that you as the board member continue to learn so you can serve the community. Thank you, Nate. That was really helpful. Uh Sandy, what else would you like to add? Uh you know, I think that um we we have a goal of us all learning X amount of hours. And um I think I should have looked that up first, but I think it's 20 hours a year. So, if you can't go to the convention, which if you're working, don't be concerned. Um we've had IASB come to do the um the work sessions, which is really good and and sometimes maybe better because we can relate it totally to our own situation. Um another thing is talking to your constituents might take more time than you think.
063I'm from a small town. I go to the grocery store. It might take me an hour to get out of the grocery store where normally you'd think it'd be 30 minutes because somebody wanted to talk to me about an issue. So, there's just some sort of hidden time I think that um that you might want to be aware of. Tammy, anything else that you would like to add about um expectations for running or for board service or Catherine? Y'all said it excellently. Agreed. Let's um we were going to do another poll, but instead, thank you, Sandy and Nate, but instead of doing the poll because we wanted to talk about some other uh important topics, Tammy, do you want to just talk through the slide on what how people may be able to um learn
064more. >> Absolutely. I would I would highly encourage you to reach out and talk to um former and or current board members and ask them how much time they spent. The amount of time it took me to read through my board packet in my first few months looked very different after several years. But, it does take some time to work through. Um get perspective from the superintendent. The superintendent can also share uh some boards Sandy, you set us up beautifully to talk about the annual board award. So, board members, if they invest 15 hours uh of learning, um they will uh they receive accreditation for that, an award. And when your full team does that, a majority of the board, then that team is recognized. Some boards have that expectation that board members will do
065that. So, ask ask that question. Um talk with your the um your board secretary or your SBO, and in some districts, it's one in the same. Uh they're also a great reference. And if you've not attended at least one meeting, and I don't mean just the parts you like, from start to finish, I highly encourage you to do that. Uh that'll give you a sense of just how long the meetings um run because sometimes they have a lot of content to get through. Sorry, Lou, you can you can keep going unless anybody wants to add to that. No, I'm trying to see more people and I keep advancing the slide. So, I apologize. There's just too much going on on my screen. Sorry for throwing everybody off. I'm going to share uh just a couple
066of quick tips about how you're going to learn about your district. Um sometimes we'll hear, "Hey, I've sat on a lot of different boards and I feel like I feel like I got this. I know what I'm I know what I'm doing." And there's no doubt about it. Different boards can give you some different perspective. Um I will also say as someone who has also done that, uh school board was just a bit unique. And so, I would start by visit your district's website. Identify um what are those really big picture pieces of information? Thinking again about Lou's beautiful garden, I would look uh look on the district for your the vision, the mission, and goals or priorities. Uh different districts will do that differently, but take a perusal through and understand what are some
067of those kind of guiding pieces that you will see uh and and you will see and hear words about educating all students. And what does that What does that look like? Um when you are elected, you'll want to ask more questions about just understand what the goals are and what those priorities are. Uh along with that will be some of the key initiatives about what are we doing in the district? What is the district already doing because you will uh be taking a spot uh standing on the shoulders of many who've walked ahead of you and laid some beautiful groundwork for what your district is working on. So, understand what those key initiatives look like uh and what they are. And then again, thinking about what's the state of the district. Um understanding your boundaries,
068having a sense of how many counties uh might you cover your district? How many counties does it cover? Um how are How is your board made up? Are you all what we would call at-large seats or do you have director districts? Just really getting an understanding of what that looks like. Um staffing trends is a big conversation right now. So, understanding what does that look like and what has the district done? What are areas maybe that are really hard to fill areas or maybe harder than others? Um you may find that your district is sharing resources with another district, which by the way is a beautiful way to do that. But again, asking some of those high-level questions and really getting that perspective of what's happening on the board will help you understand your work
069better uh once you're elected. Lou, I think I'm passing it to you to either uh help me with anything I missed or uh pass it on to um Sandy and Nate. Let's see if Sandy and Nate each have a brief uh insight they can share about learning about the district and why that was helpful. Sandy, I think we're going to start with you. Okay. Well, I really think the website is a wealth of information. Attending school board meetings, I wish more people would, even people who aren't running. Um and that and then talking to the superintendent and SBO. Thanks so much, Sandy. Nate, what would you like to offer? I don't know if I really have a whole lot more to offer given between Sandy and Tammy, so yeah, like be active about it though,
070you know. Yeah. Don't be a passive learner, be active. And superintendents would love and would welcome a audience with you. I've heard that over and over and over. Don't be shy about asking to come in and spend some time with the superintendent as a potentially new board member, they would love to visit with you. Thank you so much. I think we're going to hear a little bit of um guidance from Catherine on tips filing as a candidate. Yeah. Um just quickly, um there's a few uh very important dates for those of you considering running for the board. Um your very first date to uh file a nomination papers is going to be August is August 25th. Um your very last day is September 18th. Um also want to make sure you're aware that um we
071have a very comprehensive school board elections web page on our on our website. I'm going to drop that in chat so you have the link. It's also here on this slide for you. Um for example, one thing you're going to want to make sure to check out is the guide for school board candidates and I'm going to specifically put a link to that as well. Um also want to make sure um you know about our our upcoming second candidate webinar on September 3rd um regarding legal and ethical campaigns for the school board. Um make sure you check that out. Thanks, Catherine. Uh we have a couple more items to hear from Sandy and Nate. Nate, I think you're going to start us off by sharing what are your tips for running uh filing and running
072as a board member. Yeah, um I think for me campaigning I think it's going to be quite different depending on where you are campaigning at whether it's a larger community like mine or some of our many smaller schools in the district. Going to be very different, but I would say make sure you pay attention to those dates as they're listed on like ISAB's website or the the Secretary of State's website has it as well. And then I think the one piece of advice on those nomination papers get more signatures on those than you than the minimum. So if any if there's any issues with them, you still have plenty to stay on the ballot. Thanks so much, Sandy. What about you? Um you know, I think a large district versus a smaller district is very
073different. Um but the uh filing the paperwork is the number one thing. I also took out an ad in the paper. Um but we didn't exactly have uh rallies or anything like that. It's a little smaller town, but um good tips that Nate said. How do you um any tips on how to get signatures? Question just came in. Sandy, what would you say? Well, I went to a lot of school activities. We uh had uh what we call a back-to-school bash. Um which I didn't have any trouble getting any you know, there was a lot of people there. School activities is a good place to and and the people expect you to talk about school things. >> Nice captured audience. Thank you. And you went up and down your street and I >> I got
074most of you know, last couple times, but yeah, school activities, other meetings. Um you know, cuz they're not committing to voting they're not committing to voting for you. They're just trying to get on the ballot. You know, if you maybe sometimes you're like, do I should I approach this person? Will they support me? You don't have to worry about that at this point. You're just trying to get on the ballot and you just need signatures. And let's hear one last tip overall from each of you. Sandy, what would you like if you had one piece of advice that we haven't talked about yet to those considering running for board of supervisors? What would you say? Well, it's pretty simple for me. If you put kids first and what they need, you'll never go wrong. Beautiful.
075Thank you. And Nate. Yeah, if I if you're here considering it, I would I would encourage you to do it. It's you know, it's very fulfilling to serve your community in this way, especially one that's so much you know, a lot of most people can get around like supporting education in the community. So um if you're thinking about it, give it some serious thought and to do it. Thank you so much. There's a couple questions in coming in around um a guide for for signatures, addresses, phone numbers required. I think all that information is Tammy, what were you going to say? Can tell it's the tip of your tongue. You uh you were spot-on. Uh that information will be in the guide. It'll tell you it's a percentage of voters in your last election or
076uh 50 signatures or 100 signatures, but it'll it will tell you that. Uh I will also say that on your application to fill out to run for school board, there is not a place to check a political party that you belong to. Which I think is a really strong statement. That's not the case if you're going to be on your city council, if you're going to be on your county board, but when you look at that application, um so what you choose to do and and how you choose to be supported financially um will be up to you, but you you do not have to there's not a box to check when you're um collecting your signatures on your and you'll see that when you're when you're downloading that information. Lou, I think I'm supposed
077to race through the candidate webinars, right? Let's uh I think we can just mention that we have three coming up. Perfect. And I would say if you're like me and you won't remember what you ate for lunch today, you can get your phone out really quick and snap a picture of that. We will be promoting this on our all of our social media platforms. And so and there's no cost to you. Uh you I would say you'd be crazy not to come back and join us. You won't have to be with Lou and Catherine and I each time. There'll be there'll be some different audiences. But you have three different three different learning opportunities that we encourage you between September and October to mark your calendars for. And speaking of marking your calendars, and the
078coolest thing happens with all the cool people in Des Moines on November 19th through the 21st, which is when we do uh we have just renamed this year IASB Board Con. Sometimes you might hear us use the word convention. We'll be at the Iowa Event Center. Um when you're elected, your district will take uh they will um take care of the cost for you to attend and for your lodging. So talk to your superintendent uh about that. But they will take care of that. And then Lou mentioned Ready, Set, Govern, which is a pre-convention workshop that'll be on the 19th. It's a half a day. Um you'll be able to um attend that as well. You will get to meet fellow school board members. You'll get to hear from people of varying sizes of districts
079to yours. It is an incredible learning opportunity and you can find out more information on our website. Catherine, I think you have one more bit of really important information. >> Yeah, that's right. You just mentioned Ready, Set, Govern at um pre at pre-convention. We also are offering that same workshop in person at 16 locations all around the state um in December and January. Um so I am going to drop this link that's at the bottom of it that screen there in the chat. Um you can go there and see where we're expecting to be and choose one that's close to you. Um also note that your district will cover the cost for you to attend the workshop. So we look forward to meeting you in person. So please put those up dates on your calendar
080so that if you when you run, if you win, um you can plan on attending and get ahead of the curve on your board service. But we want to on behalf of IASB thank you all for taking time today to participate in um such an important learning that we believe in terms of your commitment to running for the board. And we believe it's one of the most rewarding and important volunteer services roles we believe you can take on as Nate said earlier. We are here to help you and we are seriously just a phone call away uh on our PowerPoint. Uh you can see our phone number, our website. Please reach out if you have any questions. Again, the power the webinars being recorded, the PowerPoint materials that Catherine just posted will be on our
081website. Sandy and Nate, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to prep and then to help us uh deliver such a meaningful conversation for our uh prospective members. And uh Tammy and Catherine for you as well. We appreciate um everyone's collective contributions today. For those of you watching the recording, thank you so much for um watching the recording. For those of you being in person, thank you. Uh take care of everyone and um hope to see you at Board Con.