​One of the things I have learned in my first two years on the school board is that it can be tempting to receive the budget and immediately jump into its specifics—in essence, the problem of not seeing the forest for the trees. There will be time in the weeks ahead to dig in, question, and scrutinize the details. Tonight, though, I believe it’s important that we intentionally spend some time talking about the larger, structural elements that we’re seeing in this budget.
 
The first element is revenue. I have spoken before about my concern that we do not operate in a world where we can be completely confident that revenue growth will exceed the growth in our expenses. I have spoken about my concern that we cannot rely forever on using reserves to plug the gap in our budget and fund ongoing costs. Over the past few years, we’ve used reserves in large measure to fund a compensation increase that was several years overdue for our staff. This is an ongoing cost if we are to fairly compensate our employees for their work and recruit new people who want to work in Arlington.
 
Since I have been on the board, and even during the years before, I have heard various people bristle at the claim that APS has a “structural deficit.” In fact, we do. Our share of local tax revenue, our funding from the state, the very small amount we get from the federal government, fees we collect from programs like Extended Day and our pools—these revenues do not cover ongoing expenses.  Our Budget Advisory Council has expressed this concern multiple times, and I am grateful for the volunteer energy and ideas that group brings to this challenge.
 
Other local school divisions acknowledge the revenue issue as well. Fairfax County Public Schools states: “A structurally balanced budget occurs when recurring revenues are equal to recurring expenditures in the adopted budget. Since FCPS has needed to use one-time savings from the prior fiscal year to meet recurring expenditures, FCPS has a structural deficit. While this helps address funding needs in the short term, FCPS and the County both recognize that using one-time funding for recurring expenditures is not fiscally sound over the long term.” 

In Loudoun County, the school division notes “Since the current state funding methodology significantly underfunds the true cost of the mandated minimum instructional program, each school division in the state uses a greater share of its local revenues to cover the costs of education.” 

In Loudoun last year, the local government funded 69% of the school division’s operating budget, and the state funded 29%. That left just 2% to be covered by other sources, including federal funding. In Fairfax, 69% was funded locally and 27% was funded by the state. In Arlington, our FY24 school operating budget is 78% locally funded and 15% supported by state funds—leaving a larger gap, of 7%, to be covered by federal dollars, fees we can collect, and reserves. $38M in reserves that we used to plug the expense gap and balance our budget. (See breakdown of funding for local school divisions here.) 
 
This brings me to the second structural element, which is expenses. If you don’t have the revenue you’d like to have—whether that’s in your family, in your company, for your faith community—you look to cut expenses. Some will naturally wonder why expenses and enrollment don’t track at the exact same rate in a school division. I have two things to say about this.
 
The first thing I’d encourage us to acknowledge: our schools, not just in Arlington but across the country, are being asked to do more and more. First and foremost, we expect our schools to modernize and personalize instruction according to what research is telling us about the science of reading, necessary supports for English Learners, the most effective accommodations for students with disabilities, and more. We expect our schools to operate in an environmentally sustainable way to mitigate the climate crisis, which is both a practical measure and a moral obligation to our youngest citizens. We expect our schools to be the first responders to students with mental health needs—which our local and national data show are escalating. We expect our schools to educate students about drugs that are more addictive, lethal, and accessible than anything previous generations had to reckon with. And at the most basic level, we expect our schools to be safe places, in an era of all-too-common school shootings.
 
Even if enrollment held steady over the past ten years—and even building in market-competitive salaries for our staff—due to the factors I’ve just described and more, our financial needs would increase.
 
The second thing I will say about expenses is this: we absolutely must be getting the maximum value for every dollar we spend. I have spoken before about our need to have a more intentional process for evaluating return on investment. This is true in all times, not just in times when we are revenue-challenged, because we are stewards of a significant amount of public money and trust.

None of what I have stated tonight absolves us of our responsibility to operate as strategically and efficiently as possible, and in a way that aligns with our values and priorities. And while I hope we will continue to talk about our budget in this high-level, structural way, the immediate work before us is to balance our budget. We have to do that in a manner that invests in the most high-leverage, critical components of our work—even as society’s definition of our work is expanding.
 
To do that, we need to leverage all the expertise at our disposal, and I believe many individuals and groups have expertise to contribute.

Families, you know better than anyone how high-level budget and operations changes will affect the real day-to-day of your children and your home.

Our school staff contribute their practical, on-the-ground experience to say, “Here’s how policies and investments actually impact our direct work with students.”

Our central office staff look across schools to understand trends, meet shared needs, and apply research and best practices from the field.

The superintendent applies his expertise to say, “Here are my recommendations about the best ways to invest to meet our strategic goals.”

Our County Board colleagues hold the expertise to understand how APS’s needs align and coexist with other community needs, and within our shared, long term revenue forecast.

It is my belief that the School Board makes its best decisions when we listen carefully to the expertise each of these groups can contribute and synthesize these perspectives into a fuller, more informed understanding to guide decision making. I look forward to doing that work together.

Kate Nyegaard was the first person who ever spoke to me about serving on a school board. Nyegaard is a civic leader in arts, education, and healthcare in her hometown of Modesto, California, where she served on the Modesto City Schools Board of Education from 1993-2005. She also happens to be George Lucas’s sister.

I met Kate when I was doing some consulting work for the George Lucas Educational Foundation about a dozen years ago. Kate, a Foundation board member, was attending an event I’d helped to plan for a group of teacher advisors and contributors at Skywalker Ranch. 

During a very enjoyable chat about many topics in education, she said to me, “You should run for school board.”

It must be said that part of my brain was distracted with I AM STANDING NEXT TO DARTH VADER’S ACTUAL LIGHTSABER OMG OMG OMG. But the rest of my brain had the following immediate reactions:

1. I cannot imagine anything more boring than a school board meeting. And
2. I have two children under the age of five. I’ve been wondering what I could add to fill all my empty time, LOL.

But a decade later, I ran for school board in Arlington, Virginia. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and one you should consider, too.

Why serve on a school board?

Simply put, it’s a really rewarding job. You’ll learn an incredible amount about public schools and about your community. I’ve worked for about 30 years in education, and I’m still learning new things every week because I’m a school board member. 

If you’re an introvert like I am, the role gives you an opportunity to get to know people you might never meet otherwise. I talk with parents, teachers, students, school bus drivers, principals, school safety coordinators, nonprofit leaders, cafeteria workers, retirees, civic association members, social service providers, social justice advocates, the superintendent, school counselors, faith communities, scout troops, and more. These connections have been wonderful, even when (and maybe especially when) we’ve met over something contentious and found some common ground.

Best of all, you’ll get to be useful, in ways that really matter. George Lucas says, “Education is the single most important endeavor of the human race.” I believe this is true. He urges, “We have to plan for our collective future -- and the first step begins with the social, emotional, and intellectual tools we provide to our children.” School boards are the stewards of public education, accountable to their communities for the care and development of our youngest citizens. 

What's the job like?

School boards typically have four primary responsibilities:

• Setting policies that govern the operation of the school district,
• Approving operating and capital improvement budgets,
• Hiring and managing the superintendent, and
• Engaging with the communities they represent.

Additionally, in many parts of the country, school boards have independent taxing authority to generate revenue for school operations. In Virginia, we don’t.

School boards govern but do not directly manage the school system–that’s the superintendent’s job. It’s sometimes difficult to make that distinction, which can lead to micromanaging.

The other tension is that school boards are not help desks. (See above note about governance versus operations.) Board members hear from parents who are concerned about something that happened to their children at school; district employees who would like to see a particular change in their work assignments; community members who live adjacent to schools and want relief from bus and car traffic; and more. As a school board member, you’ll want to encourage people to work with the decision makers who are most closely connected to their concern, like their child’s counselor, the school principal, or the human resources team. You’ll also want to consider that there is often more to the story than you might initially understand. 

That said, as a school board member I try to remain curious and look for patterns in what I’m hearing. Are multiple people raising the same issue? Is it repeating over time? Does it point to a policy that’s not being followed, a policy that might need to be changed, a part of the budget that should be adjusted, or something to be discussed as part of the superintendent’s annual evaluation cycle? If so, then it’s a matter for the school board. 

My day-to-day activities as a school board member include things like:

• Preparing for and participating in the regular public meetings of the school board (every two weeks, anywhere from 2-5 hours per meeting).
• Preparing for and participating in regular closed meetings of the school board. By law, we can only hold closed meetings on certain topics, like personnel issues or confidential legal matters. 
• Talking and emailing with other school board members, usually multiple times each week.
• Meeting one-on-one with the superintendent each month, and sharing questions and ideas more frequently as needed.
• Attending meetings and community events, particularly for my “assigned” schools. In Arlington, each school board member serves a liaison to a handful of specific schools, and the assignments rotate annually. We also liaise with specific civic associations.
• Engaging with citizen advisory groups. Advisory groups share feedback and recommendations with the whole board, but individual board members act as liaisons to one or more advisory groups, attending meetings and talking with committee members.
• Conferring and collaborating with county board members. In Arlington, the chairs and vice chairs of each board gather for monthly joint leadership meetings, but it’s also helpful for individual board members to get to know each other one-on-one.
• Reading weekly updates from the superintendent, which usually include answers to questions gathered from school board members over the previous week.
• Reading other information shared by the superintendent, his leadership team, and others within the school district; asking questions or setting up meetings as needed to learn more.
• Studying what is happening at the federal and state levels that will influence how the district operates.
• Researching what other school divisions are doing so that we can learn from and adapt promising practices. 
• Reading, listening to, and responding to community input via email, in meetings, and in one-on-one conversations.

To a certain extent state law and district policies dictate what school board members can and can’t do. Beyond that, it’s up to each school board member to determine how they’ll perform the role, which is supposed to be a part-time job. I encourage you to talk to multiple school board members about their experiences, as they may have different perspectives from what I’m sharing here. 

How to prepare

I recommend talking with current and former school board members to learn more about the job. Many (including me!) are happy to share what it’s like. 

Next, I’d suggest a little soul-searching. Why do you want to serve on the school board? If it’s for a very specific reason–say, you are upset that your school division ended its French Immersion program last year–you might want to reconsider running. That narrow motivation won’t fuel you through a full term of service. 

You’ll need to have another source of income, since most school board members earn very little (and in fact, they are still volunteers in certain parts of the country). In Arlington, school board members earn $25,000 a year. If you’re employed full-time, consider how you’ll balance your “regular work” schedule with school board commitments. I work 9-5 on weekdays, and I’m lucky to have an employer that offers some flexibility for the school board business that needs to happen during those hours.

​You’ll want to learn more about your local school division before you seek a seat on the school board. Look at publicly-available achievement data, program evaluations, advisory committee reports, school climate surveys, and the district’s strategic plan. Attend public meetings and get involved as a volunteer, as you are able. Talk to other, longtime volunteers, community leaders, school division employees, and activists. Ask them “What’s been your experience with our public schools?” and “What would you change?” Ask them to introduce you to one other person so you can keep listening and learning.

In Arlington and many other locales, school boards are elected, not appointed (fun fact: Virginia was the last state to allow–but not mandate–elected school boards, in 1992). This means you’ll have to become a candidate and run for office. Campaigning felt really intimidating to me: it took me a full year to get comfortable with the idea and learn what campaigning would really entail. 

As a candidate, you’ll worry that you need a perfect answer to every question about your school system. While it’s true that you’ll want to sound knowledgeable about your school district, you can’t know everything about all parts of its operation. (As a board member, I still don’t.)  And the issues that come up during your campaign may recede from the public consciousness, only to be replaced by entirely new issues in the next campaign cycle. 

I think it’s more important that you describe how you will go about learning the issues and weighing multiple options as a school board member, so that voters can be confident that you are reasonable, open-minded, and willing to put in the work.

Above all, people want to know what motivates you, what you value, and what you hope for. My favorite question as a candidate was, “What would you want to be different by the end of your term?” 

If that question lights you up–and if you believe that public education is important to our individual and collective futures–I hope you’ll raise your hand to serve on a school board.

The last time I wrote, it was about how AI will change education (and in fact, when I powered up my computer today, at the top of my inbox was this Education Week article: “AI could save school districts time and money—if they use it correctly").

AI uses algorithms to make decisions, and those algorithms operate by prioritizing certain factors over others. For example, internet advertising companies use an algorithm that prioritizes ads that are topically-related to your most recent browser searches (remember how spooky it felt when this first started happening?). It could just as easily prioritize ads for purple products, or ads related to food if you happen to log on at lunchtime.

Humans use algorithms when we make decisions, too, and that’s what I want to write about today.

Let’s say you’re the owner of a toy store and you want to open a second location. But where? There are lots of factors you’ll weigh, including your budget; how much space you think you’ll need; where your competitors are located; proximity to other businesses that would attract toy-buyers; your employees’ transportation needs; and more. Depending on which of these factors you prioritize in your own algorithm, you’ll likely arrive at different conclusions.

Then there’s the question of how you decide what factors to prioritize. If I’m the sole owner of the business, I could safely argue that I get to create the algorithm all by myself. Proximity to other businesses that would attract toy-buyers is top of mind for me, followed by the cost; if it’s a little smaller than I would like, or it’s a few minutes’ walk from the nearest bus stop, I can live with that.

​Now let’s say I am a public school district and I want to open some magnet schools in order to create more diverse school communities. (Set aside for the moment the question of whether there’s robust evidence that magnet schools are an effective way to desegregate.) Now I have to figure out what type(s) of magnet programs to offer. Some of the factors I could prioritize include:

Any one of these factors would be a perfectly reasonable thing to prioritize in my algorithm—but they’ll yield different results.

In my magnet school example, who gets to decide what factors to prioritize in the algorithm? It’s not as simple as in the toy store example. Who is the “owner” of the business? Who is the “owner” of the decision about how to build the algorithm? Because it’s a public system, what special obligations does that create, if any, for community input?

District leadership, educators, school board members, parents, students, and community members all likely have ideas about what factors should be prioritized, and those ideas may not line up.

We talk a lot about “data-driven decision making” but I’m realizing that this may miss the mark. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me over time that our quarrel in decision making may not be with the data but rather with the algorithms the data are fed into.

​Sometimes if we have inaccurate or missing information we may have a data problem, but more often I think the friction is around:

This has been on my mind a lot this summer as APS staff, the community, the school board and its advisory councils weigh important, upcoming decisions about our facilities. It’s central to other aspects of our school system, too—for example, the school board’s annual budget direction is basically an instrument designed to prioritize factors.

​Maybe these insights have been obvious to everyone else and I’m late to the party (it wouldn’t be the first time). But it feels like this will be useful for me in my job moving forward—and perhaps it will be useful to you, too, particularly as we work to engage each other in constructive and trust-building ways.