Add "Delegate to DISD Board Briefings" as a PTA/PTSA position

Here's a sum-up of the painful history between the Magnet/Learning Center communities and the Dallas School Board.

Once or twice a year, there is some crisis in policy that comes up that threatens critical components of how the Magnet/Learning Center programs work. The Magnet/Learning Center community hears about it, rallies parents and community members, floods Board rep inboxes and packs out Board Meetings.

This process has always had mixed success. This process makes everyone on every side feel like they being attacked in every conflict. This process leaves a lot of people bitter, suspicious and disenfranchised.

After sitting in on Board Briefings and Meetings for a year now, I think I know why the present process of "community feedback" is so painful. By the time an issue gets to a Meeting, it's a done deal 95% of the time. All Board members go into any given meeting knowing how they are going to vote on every single item. If it feels like a Herculean effort to get Board members to change their mind in a Meeting, that's because IT IS.

If parents wait to act until an issue is scheduled for a Board Meeting, they have waited too long. It's too late to change it.

Don't believe me? Every Learning Center and every school-within-a-school magnet program suffered severe, crippling funding cutbacks last year. They did not have reps talking to Board members IN THE FALL when all the plans were being made.

Here is a huge breakdown in the system - the Board is elected to represent parents and taxpayers in DISD issues. Parents and taxpayers are suppose to communicate to the Board what they want, but by the time the parents and taxpayers have specific opinions on specific issues, the Board has already made decisions and moved on.

In addition, each Board member is left to figure out how they want to communicate with their constituents. There is no budget for this to speak of (the DISD manufactured newsletter does NOT count) and Board members are part time, so they have to squeeze in "constituency communication" into already overloaded schedules, inventing the process as they go along.

I think that's crazy. We put people into jobs where they have to "re-invent the wheel" on mission-critical components every single time a new person takes the position. Who will fix that? Will you? Or will you wait for someone else to do it? Do you have opinions on this?

We elected the Dallas School Board to make decisions for us, and they will do that. I think if we want better communication with our Board reps, we the constituents need to figure out how to make that happen. If school communities are really, truly motivated to have input into policy while it is in the draft stage, they need to start by sending observation delegates to Board Briefings. Every new policy goes through two readings before it hits a Board Meeting for a vote. That's the time to talk about it.

Remember, if you wait until it hits the Board Meeting, it's too late.

If you and your fellow parents have reason to complain about DISD or the School Board, seriously consider this: Add "Delegate to DISD Board Briefings" as a PTA/PTSA position. It's the first step to having meaning input in the policy process.