Building strong community relationships and advocating positive, constructive dialogue is a critical task for school boards, albeit a challenging one in today’s climate of strong opinions and hot button issues. On this episode of Keystone Education Radio, hear from PSBA’s president-elect and Parkland School District’s board president David Hein on his district’s drive to continuously learn, grow and communicate effectively, and what he calls failing forward.
“Having that parent view of and perspective of what’s going on in the schools really helps to inform us if there’s something that needs to be addressed, that we need to maybe bring to the administration to look into.”
Skip to: 02:16 So how does a board individually and collectively build, maintain and strengthen the relationship with their community?
“Respectfully listening and paying attention to every speaker, taking notes and then working with the administration to have somebody get back to the person on their concern, whether it’s collectively or individually to get back to them, to clarify any misunderstandings or just work through an issue.”
Skip to: 03:57 How do you, as a board, work to address the challenges, or is there a way at all to preempt challenges with community members?
“I think the way to address it is to be prepared for that. Have the information readily available. Work with the administration because really ours is the governance, not the management role from a board.”
Skip to: 05:35 Do you have any examples or highlights of what you would consider to be successful situations or maybe successful exchanges that have occurred in working with your community or with a school board working with their community?
“The collaboration and wanting to hear from a board and a district perspective, wanting to hear the different opinions and different perspectives, so we can grow if we’re doing some something that’s, I don’t want to say wrong, but that just needs to be adjusted and incorporating different ideas.”
“Whatever the topic is, are we perfect as a school district, any school district or a board? No, there’s always room to grow and learn, and that’s part of it. And that’s part of teaching the students too, that it’s okay to make mistakes and fail forward and grow as an organization, a community, a board.”
Q: I’m going to talk about the relationship between community members and the school board. So let’s first define what role does the public or the community members play with the work of the board? How do those fit together?
A: I think the public voice is definitely very important for us as school board members to have. They bring the balance really, a lot of it from the parent perspective of what they’re seeing their children are doing and what’s going on in schools. A lot of school board members may not have children left in schools. They’ve grown up and moved on. So having that parent view of and perspective of what’s going on in the schools really helps to inform us if there’s something that needs to be addressed, that we need to maybe bring to the administration to look into.
Q: So how does a board individually and collectively build, maintain and strengthen the relationship with their community? How should they go about doing that or how do you go about doing that?
A: I think part of that is the agenda items at every board meeting, where parents and the community have the opportunity to come and address the board, either for comments on agenda items, or later in the meeting, comments on non-agenda items, where they bring their concerns to us for the items that we’re going to address and hopefully approve in the meeting, if they have concerns or need more clarification or just bringing us concerns on items of any topic really. Having that voice and bringing that to us is definitely one way to build a relationship. I think that is not a dialogue, it’s just a comment, the time for the community to come to us, but respectfully listening and paying attention to every speaker, taking notes and then working with the administration to have somebody get back to the person on their concern, whether it’s collectively or individually to get back to them, to clarify any misunderstandings or just work through an issue.
Q: There’s a lot of challenging topics. Certainly, there is now. And there can be challenging topics at any time. But how do you, as a board, work to address the challenges, or is there a way at all to preempt challenges with community members?
A: I agree, there are a lot of hot topics right now, but it also goes to anything from turf fields to redistricting to full-day kindergarten or whatever the topic of the day is. Knowing what the issues are that are coming up that the parents are concerned about, whether you’re hearing about it from trips to the grocery store or emails or whatever, knowing that people are going to be coming to the meetings to talk about it. I think the way to address it is to be prepared for that. Have the information readily available. Work with the administration because really ours is the governance, not the management role from a board. But to work with the administration to really have them prepared for what you’re hearing and what you feel is going come up at a meeting to be able to answer the concerns of the parents and the public.
Q: So it’s that ear to the ground approach and lots of listening, so that you can have those answers ready, or hopefully be able to address what’s being presented then.
A: Yeah, 100%. Yes. It’s just really preparation and knowing the audience, knowing what’s going on in your district.
Q: Do you have any examples from your own district or even some that you’ve heard about in other districts maybe, examples or highlights of what you would consider to be successful situations or maybe successful exchanges that have occurred in working with your community or with a school board working with their community? Any kind of successful outcomes that you can think of?
A: Two really come to mind off the top. One was a concern that a parent brought to the board as a representative of a youth recreation sports league, where there was going to be some fees charged to these organizations to come in to open houses and things like that to try to get registrations and all that and drum up support for their organizations. That was taken back by the administration, looked into, and then these organizations were invited in to have a meeting and an understanding of what was happening. And it was resolved where the fees weren’t going to be charged for these organizations. So, the collaboration of maybe, and not everybody knowing that these are going on, but then the collaboration to work to resolve it in a timely manner, as well as a manner that everyone is happy with.
Q: It sounds like that might be something that wouldn’t have been on your radar as a board without it being brought to your attention in that way.
A: Correct. There are definitely things like that that fall behind the scenes, that we don’t get into. Again, it’s the management piece where the district is running the day-to-day operations. So, we were very appreciative that that person came forward to us and brought their concerns to the board.
The other example that I can think of is around diversity, equity and inclusion. We have long standing work in the district to support that, not just recently with all the current events, but trying to really refresh that and bring that forward and have more people involved with that. We have a community committee of the diversity, equity and inclusion committee in our district, and some parents are coming forward and wanting to understand more about that and get involved with that because of not knowing what is involved with that, with CRT out there being closely associated by some people, mistakenly that way on DEI. So inviting especially one or two parents who have been coming to the board to come and be a part of that committee, not new committee, but that standing committee and get more information.
So it’s working that way. Again, the collaboration and wanting to hear from a board and a district perspective, wanting to hear the different opinions and different perspectives, so we can grow if we’re doing some something that’s, I don’t want to say wrong, but that just needs to be adjusted and incorporating different ideas. So, things like that I think are really successes and help our district and any district grow stronger.
Q: That’s great. Those are great examples. And as you pointed out, it’s not always a matter of a right or wrong situation, but more so, and maybe it’s evolving, developing something, that requires a new look or a new perspective lens on it.
A: Yes, absolutely. Whatever the topic is, are we perfect as a school district, any school district or a board? No, there’s always room to grow and learn, and that’s part of it. And that’s part of teaching the students too, that it’s okay to make mistakes and fail forward and grow as an organization, a community, a board. So, yes. Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Q: Yeah, I love that, fail forward. That’s a great term for that, really applied to any aspect of life really.
A: Truly.
Q: Yeah, absolutely.
David J. Hein
David J. Hein is starting his third term on the Parkland School Board and currently serves as its president. He has held the position of vice president, is a member of the Buildings and Grounds Committee and also has served in various capacities on the Personnel and Finance and the Academics, Arts and Athletics committees. Additionally, he is chair of the joint operating committee of the Lehigh Career and Technical Institute (LCTI), where has served as vice chair and treasurer as well as on several committees. Hein is the president of the 2022 PSBA Governing Board and served as president-elect in 2021. He also is PSBA’s representative on the School Safety and Security Committee under the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the PSBA liaison to the Parkland School Board.