Gary Miller, member of the Roseville City School District School Board
Have you ever wondered what the world, your community, your city will be like when you’re gone? What kind of leaders will we have? What kind of choices will they make and what are we doing to help them make those choices?
Public education not only teaches children the ABC’s, but to be respectful of others and to accept differences in other people. Public education teaches children how to play together, how to solve problems together, how to use math, language and science and how to combine those skills to solve community issues together.
While teachers and administrators deliver the “methods” to make this education happen, School Board Members provide the “means”. School board members decide what subjects will be taught, approve budgets for union contracts with employees, and how much teachers, cooks, and bus drivers are to be paid. And, in California, school boards have the challenge to draft budgets based on the amount of monies received from the state before the state decides how much money will be given to the schools.
They decide, with community input, what to teach children so when these children grow up and have responsible positions within government or society, their decisions will be based on science and reasoning.
School board members also have the responsibility to hire people to teach all kinds of children - children with special needs, children with limited or no English, children who are homeless or whose homes are “broken”.
In Roseville, we also have the challenge of growth. More and more people are moving to Roseville - but only into one section of town. So, occasionally, school board members will be asked to redraw the lines to insure the available facilities, staff and materials meet the needs of all the district’s students.
Currently all school districts are facing the challenge of how to educate children in a pandemic. While some parents don’t want their children at school at all, some can’t afford to keep them at home because of child care issues, and still others students have special needs. The school board must devise protocols to accommodate the needs of all children and all families.
So what kind of community/world do you want to leave behind? Will today’s students solve issues around climate change? Racial unrest? Homophobia? Or will the society fifty years from now still be wrestling with many of the same issues we face today?
School board members help to determine how children of today will become strong community members and leaders of tomorrow. It’s a worthy task.