Work with administration staff to properly prioritize educational needs

By Mark D. Bergstrasser

Prioritization of educational needs should be decided by the elected board rather than administration staff.

The elected board members are the contact liaisons between what is desired by the public and what is done by the district. The elected board then should consider information gathered from the citizens that elected them, as well as the data collected by district staff, and from that set the priority of what needs to be done.

An elected board member has to do more than attend one monthly board meeting. The board member needs to visit school sites regularly, discuss issues with administration, teaching, and classified staff, be readily available to the citizens of Wasco to hear concerns and ideas, and then come to a prioritized decision that is best for the students.

As an elected board member, I will work to prioritize the following items:

• Ensure that adequate supplies and resources are available to all staff to achieve high performance levels.
• Ensure that facilities are adequate and meet a high quality standard.
• Ensure that all school site construction projects are good for the students, staff, and community neighbors.
• Ensure that educational administration staff manages school site educational issues and classified management staff deals with non educational issues.
• Ensure that educational administration staff works in the district wholly on district educational issues.
• Strive to employ management and administration staff that lives locally.
• Evaluate and make necessary changes to the hiring policy for employees and selection policy for vendors to ensure that conflict of interest issues are circumvented.
• Strive to implement the will of the citizens of Wasco to achieve a high quality education for our children