School Boards and Stuff
An interesting election season heats up in central Texas
We are in the midst of election season and, if you live in the Leander ISD area, then you know our local races make up a considerable part of the ballot this year. In particular, five of seven LISD School Board positions are up for election! I am currently an administrator in another district, and I have taught and served as a teacher and administrator at all levels of PreK-12 public education, including working for quite a while in Leander ISD. Without mentioning any candidates by name or trying to persuade people how to vote, I do think it is worthwhile to clarify a point or two.
After reading some of the information on candidate websites and seeing comments on social media, as well as watching candidate forums, the first problem I see is the perception that teachers and administrators make decisions in a vacuum. It is as though there is no bureaucracy pressing down on them. As much as we would like to think that they are able to make decisions about just about anything and everything quickly and without ramifications, it is simply not the case.
The truth is school districts are often operating in response to federal and state laws, TEA guidelines, State Board of Education (SBOE) policies, and, as we saw with COVID, other governmental agencies. There are constraints on instructional minutes, class offerings, and much more. When I hear remarks during campaign season about more emphasis on fine arts, more time for recess, or more balanced programs across the district, I believe that most educators agree with those wishes. However, there are limits and requirements set for how much time can be devoted to what.
In reality, a school district’s administration often has to spend much of its energy mitigating the unfunded, usually ridiculous and unrealistic, mandates forced upon them “from above” (take HB 4545 as an example). Schools are heavily regulated, usually in the wrong ways and for the wrong things. Schools are audited for compliance with the demands of TEA and the Commissioner, and more often than not, this buries administrators and other staff members in paperwork and meetings that detract from the more important work of teaching and learning. The thing to know is that teachers hate this reality as much as anyone else.
All that to say that there is so much rhetoric about what Leander ISD is doing wrong, how it is no longer a destination district, and how our children need to be “saved” from LISD’s ways. These claims are made as though LISD is an exceptional failure in a sea of successful competitors. It is not. Math achievement has taken a hit across the nation. Teachers have left the profession in droves everywhere. This is not an LISD problem. I wish a superintendent or a middle school principal or a third-grade teacher had that kind of power and control. It would make holding them accountable so much easier. But they simply do not. And yes, we are still reeling from the devastating effects of the dismal response to the pandemic. I agree that we cannot continue to use that as an excuse moving forward, but more than a full year of learning loss for thousands of students can also not be brushed aside as irrelevant.
Is LISD perfect? Of course not! Is there room for improvement? Most definitely! Should parents be more involved and allowed to have consultation and oversight in more areas? Sure!
What will help most is a school board made up of humble, curious, inquisitive members who are able to hold a simple conversation with someone with whom they disagree. That type of conduct, beyond catchphrases and cliches and slogans, is what we need to model for our students. Better yet, maybe the school board could just learn this kind of social discourse and civility from our students. A visit to an AVID class or secondary English or Social Studies class, in which students are conducting a discussion with protocols like “Philosophical Chairs” or a “Socratic seminar” may do our public officials some good.
Some of you may want to stop reading here, but for those who want to delve a little deeper, let me give one specific clarification to a campaign topic I have heard about multiple times.
This correction is in response to the claim that phonics is not taught in our schools. I assume the point someone is trying to make is that we have gotten away from teaching “the basics” in order to spend more time on other issues, which is hurting our children’s education. I also understand how scary it can be for parents and community members if they believe that teachers have actually neglected their responsibility to teach students how to read because they have other agendas. Eliciting fear has been an effective political strategy for as long as we have had politics.
People need to know it is actually the law that schools teach phonics. All Texas public school educators have been hugely impacted by House Bill 3 (HB 3), passed by the 86th Texas Legislature in June of 2019. One of the mandates of this legislation is that “all kindergarten through third grade teachers and principals must attend a teacher literacy achievement academy by the 2021 - 2022 school year.” (Note: There have been some updates to the completion dates since its original passing.)
Leander ISD, like all others, had to immediately put in place measures to ensure accountability and implementation of HB 3, including designating “cohort leaders” or facilitators to support and oversee staff members (mainly primary teachers) as they complete the academy. That means that LISD has a system and personnel devoted to ensuring that teachers are working on how to learn to better teach the elements of phonics instruction. Phonics, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, etc. are all instrumental parts of the required coursework.
Teachers coming into the profession must become certified in teaching strategies and skills related to teaching phonics. From the Texas Education Agency (TEA) website: “House Bill 3, passed during the 86th Texas Legislature, established the requirement that all teacher candidates who teach students in grades Pre-K-6 demonstrate proficiency in the science of teaching reading on a new, standalone certification exam. This requirement took effect on January 1, 2021.”
As someone who had to complete the Reading Academy myself last school year, I can criticize many things about the rollout of the program and policy at the state level. It is an overwhelming number of professional learning hours crammed into a school year. As usual, school districts were (and are) left to figure out how to implement state mandates under impossible circumstances. Despite the flaws in the rollout that are often outside a district’s control, it is still being done.
So, not only is it inaccurate to say schools no longer teach phonics. There are, in fact, mechanisms in place to require and support phonics instruction in our schools. Leander ISD is often very strong in the area of instructional support with some of the best instructional coaches, curriculum facilitators, and structures for professional learning communities (PLCs) to help teams of teachers improve their practices, including early literacy instruction.
Now, let me be clear, not knowing this information about phonics instruction as a parent or community member is more than acceptable. I would not expect an average taxpayer to know any of the TEA guidelines or details about House Bill 3. In fact, I think it is okay for a school board candidate also to be ignorant of these details. There is plenty about the curriculum that I would not know if I was running to be a school board member. However, I do think we have a responsibility to know these facts if we plan to make it a central campaign theme. Our educators are working tirelessly to help students learn while balancing many other demands. To blanketly say they are not doing essential, time-consuming parts of their job isn’t fair or helpful.
Happy voting!