Budgeting for Mean, Lean Times Part 11

11.  I know the importance of serving in school, professional and political organization leadership roles.

 At the school level.
Volunteer or run for governing committees. I am always shocked by how few individuals in an organization want to be decision makers. Serving on these bodies always takes extra time. But hey, one learns to love those 7:00 am meetings.

Make a list of groups who make decisions in your school. Do you have:

• A site council or a committee that writes building goals and improvement plans?
• Curriculum committees?
• Staff development committees?
• A parent-teacher organization?
• Committees that interview and select new staff members?
• Textbook selection committees?
• Accreditation team?
• Long-range or strategic planning groups at the district level?
  

If you have a chance to take a decision making role and do not, you’ve lost all whining rights about the choices that are made for you.

Work with other groups to influence legislation.
For many school districts, budget problems and their solutions lie at the state level. It is imperative librarians and technologists get and stay active politically if they really care about funding for their programs.

There are other groups in schools that have educational goals and political agendas, some of which may be closely aligned with those of the library program. Our district has a legislative committee which meets during the sessions. We formulate a list of three or four items we feel are of particular importance to our district, and find ways to let our local legislators know about them.

Nearly all state and national associations with educational affiliations have legislative platforms - the school board association, administrators associations, parent-teacher organizations, the NEA, etc. These organizations often hold forums for local politicians. Attend, get informed and get active. Our state library organizations sponsor a yearly library legislative day which gives librarians from around the state a chance to visit with their legislators. Usually the school library people are scarce at this gathering. Join us.

Is one of your faculty, a neighbor, or church member in the legislature? Schmooze. Write letters. Send e-mail. 

Participate in local politics.
County political party meetings and fund raisers often give you a chance to visit with a variety of local politicos. It’s always nice to be able to start a conversation with your senator by saying, “As we were discussing at the fall fund raiser...”

Help pass bond issues and elect school board members. Members of the community who have children in school and therefore a vested interest in schools are becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the total population. It’s therefore taking increasingly more work to get referendums passed and progressive board candidates voted in.

Offer to give short talks at service groups like Kiwanis, Sertoma, and Lions. Inform the community about your program, and fill the talk with specific times your program helped individual students.

Of course one can always make the ultimate sacrifice: run for office. We all wanted to know about the skeletons in your closet anyway!