What do you see as the top three challenges facing your school district?

By Robert Andrew "Bob" Cox

Robert Cox's position on three important challenges facing the district.

Second, declining graduation rates and academic performance for minority students at a time when the minority population has been increasing dramatically, especially Latinos, is a significant drag on overall performance, negatively impacting the perception of the quality of our school district. We have a lot of work to do to turn this around with new and expanded programs to support at-risk minority students.

Third, changing a "circle the wagons" culture which treats parents with a legitimate concern about services or treatment of their children in the schools as the enemy. In too many cases, the knee-jerk response of school officials to a parent with a grievance is to treat that parent as a likely litigant rather than a customer to be served. The result has been a self-fulfilling prophecy, a series of costly lawsuits that might otherwise have been avoided by showing proper respect and concern to the parent.