News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
White County Schools conducted a workshop so new board members could be acclimated into their new role and responsibilities.
Terri Douglas, Lisa Officer and John Smith starting terms on the board. Board of Education Chairman Bob Young said it is state law for board members to have workshop training with the Tennessee School Board Association. Young said he wanted to be proactive and better prepare the new board members ahead of their first orientation.
“We had an opportunity to have our school board attorney come and do a little pre-orientation workshop for those board members to just kind of get them in line with their roles, their expectations, and what they should expect as new board members going forward,” Young said.
Young said new board members receive a lot of information all at once and can be very difficult to comprehend everything. Young said he did not want two or three meetings to go by without the new board members receiving some sort of orientation.
“The thing that I experienced coming on as a board member is your drinking water out of a fire hydrant,” Young said. “There’s just so much coming at you.”
Young said even board members who are not new participated in the workshop. Young said after the workshop he feels like the board is in a really good spot to move forward and improve the quality of meetings.
“I think we can go into meetings that everybody feels like they are more prepared to participate,” Young said. “That’s the big thing to me is just making sure people come in and they feel prepared and I think if you do that then you are going to have the board meetings be more productive.”
Young said the two-and-a-half-hour workshop was very productive and consisted of multiple questions and answers. Young said he is thankful for the School Board’s Attorney Scott Bennett for helping put the workshop together.
