Part 1 BOE Election Primer: What is the job of the board of education?

I want to lay out one basic tenet before addressing a wide range of educational issues. The power of government rests with the people – period. In the Declaration of Independence it reads:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…. ~Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (1776)

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Yes.

I often hear that the BOE has three jobs. Those three jobs are to hire/fire the superintendent, set the budget, and to set school system policy. Personnel decisions are left up to the superintendent and central office staff. The problem w/ those three jobs…Who in the world is the bureaucracy (at central office) answering to when they behave in a manner which the community doesn’t approve of?

I am going to be very clear right now. As citizens and parents and taxpayers, we are the customers of school systems, and it isn’t the other way around. Read this next statement very carefully…

The board of education is the extension of voters which oversees the school system. The school system works for the people…and not the other way around.

BOEs are not in place to protect superintendents and bureaucracies. They are in place to serve the community and to make sure that public school systems operate at the will of the people. They are in place to listen AND to act on behalf of the people in their communities.

When Kingsport City Schools closed our school system during COVID. That was against the will of the vast majority of the people. It created incredible economic and social hardships which took years to recover. Meanwhile, Knox County(TN) schools successfully remained open and operated without shutdowns. We know now how terrible that decision(to close) was for students. Yet, central office and three members of the BOE closed those buildings anyway. All three board members who continually blocked the system from opening…they no longer serve on the BOE. They were voted off in ensuing elections. The superintendent during that time no longer works here. The electorate didn’t forget that they had been forgotten.

The power of government rests with the people. Elections matter. Your vote is the greatest power that you have. Don’t sit at home during primaries and general elections when you could take ten minutes and make a real difference. Better yet, go get five people and take them with you to the polls. Elections are the greatest form of citizen accountability within a democracy.

We will continue to take the next few weeks to work through issues which I think are important drivers in education. Again, I make no secret that I am a conservative, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be common ground.

E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.