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Illinois School Board Journal
September-October 2000
Dual perspective
by Jessica C. Billings
Browsing in a bookstore recently, I came upon a mystery novel called The School Board Murders.* Having worked for school boards for the past twenty years, I chuckled. Yes, I thought, a rich field of candidates for murder victim.
And a rich field of candidates for sainthood.
This issue of the Journal completes my career as editor. For the first and only time, I am taking the personal privilege of musing in these pages about what I’ve learned and what I believe about school boards.
A group of IASB staff members that has been studying school board governance recently discussed a little book called The Balcony Perspective.** The title pretty much tells the message: Governing boards should view their domains from a balcony which allows them to see the overall pattern and direction of movement, but not the details of day-to-day activity.
Truly, the balcony perspective is one worth cultivating.
I believe, however, that school board members need another perspective as well.
You need the perspective that comes from kneeling down to hug a child who didn’t get breakfast this morning, and who went to bed last night without much of a supper.
You need to sit down and have a cup of coffee with a mother who is raising three children on her own, squeezing the necessities of life from a low salary, wishing she could move her children to a safer neighborhood, praying that no one becomes seriously ill.
You need to have a heart-to-heart with the worst troublemaker among your students, and to feel that child’s pain and frustration.
You need to see through the eyes of a teacher who yearns to give his students something of value, even though he is beleaguered by a crippling work load, social problems beyond his control, and inadequate funds for equipment and supplies.
I maintain that school board members need a dual perspective. One is the balcony perspective, preferably a balcony high enough that you can’t make out individual faces. The other is what I will call the eye-to-eye perspective, that brings every student, every parent and every teacher to life as an important human being with needs, aspirations – and gifts to give to their community.
To put it another way, school boards are properly concerned with policy and governance procedures. They also are properly concerned with human beings.
The school board that can maintain both perspectives simultaneously is a force to be reckoned with.
Here are my final words as editor of the Illinois School Board Journal: As you struggle with governance and policy issues, don’t for a moment forget why you’re doing it. Keep them in your perspective, that army of lost, neglected, misguided children. Look past the trouble they make to the intelligence, talent and energy they represent. Fight for programs to take care of them and for more intelligent use of the justice system to save, rather than destroy, young law-breakers.
This commentary appears on the "Practical PR" page. That’s because the school board that manages to maintain both the balcony and the eye-to-eye perspectives is a walking, talking public relations machine. The integrity, effectiveness and caring of such a board speaks louder than any headline and shines more brightly than any television screen.
•*The School Board Murders, by Leslie O’Kane. (Fawcett Books; ISBN: 0449005674)
** A Balcony Perspective: Clarifying the Trustee Role, by Richard Broholm & Douglas Johnson. (The Robert K. Greenleaf Center, 921 East 86th Street, Suite 200, Indianapolis, Indiana 46240.)