Episode 262: The Vital Role of a School Community Council & Amazing Parents Who Participate

Lisa Eskesen:
It's a great way to kind of get a pulse on the school of what's happening there and then also to work together with other parents in representing the community, the student community at that school, and what their needs might be.

Anthony Godfrey:
If you want to join a School Community Council you get to play a part in allocating a portion of that eight million dollars to make sure that it is meeting the highest academic need in a school.

Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They play a vital role in our schools, leading the way, making decisions regarding School LAND Trust money and so much more.

On this episode of the Supercast, find out why parents participate on School Community Councils and how their involvement can elevate the quality of education for students by addressing needs and rallying support.

We're talking today with Lisa Eskesen about School Community Councils. She's been a parent on several and Mike Anderson, our Associate Superintendent, who oversees the work of School Community Councils and submitting information to the state, completing the trainings, all of that. So thank you both for being here.

Lisa Eskesen:
Thank you.

Mike Anderson:
My pleasure.

Anthony Godfrey
Lisa, tell us about your involvement with School Community Councils.

Lisa Eskesen:
I have been involved on School Community Councils–my oldest just graduated from high school this year and so since she was probably in first or second grade I started being on the School Community Council at her elementary school.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you have well over a decade of School Community Council experience.

Lisa Eskesen:
Around there, yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about some of the things that you've been involved in, the schools where you've served, and really for those who may not be familiar what it's been all about from a parent perspective.

Lisa Eskesen:
Okay. So like I said, my oldest just graduated. She went to elementary school at Fox Hollow Elementary and my kids go to Sunset Ridge Middle School. So once we graduated into the middle school, I went there and then at Copper Hills High School I also have served on the community council at that level. My youngest just finished at the elementary so I have consecutively been on that council for a handful of years.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. So you've seen some projects come and go.

Lisa Eskesen:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Part of what you do is you approve funding. Are there some projects that stand out that you've been able to help fund as a School Community Council that you're particularly proud of or were particularly interesting for you?

Lisa Eskesen:
Well pre-COVID when I was on the council at the middle school, one of the things that the principal and the council there really felt strongly about was technology and getting students one-to-one. So we were able to get one-to-one Chromebook use right as COVID hit. So the timing of that, it worked out perfectly. We were able to get the students who needed it their Chromebooks that they definitely used during COVID and online school.

Anthony Godfrey:
They had great timing on that.

Lisa Eskesen:
I know. A lot of thanks goes to Ms. Searle on that one, our principal. She was really pushing for that and saw that need and not even related to COVID, but she just saw the benefit that that would be to the students to have one to one technology.

Anthony Godfrey:
And the School Community Council is able to fund that through the LAND Trust money that is received from the state. Mike, tell us a little bit about how that works because that funding component is a main responsibility of the School Community Council.

Mike Anderson:
It is. It's one of the principal responsibilities they have. The history behind the LAND Trust program is quite fascinating. If you may, just a little bit of history there. When our founding leaders began expansion of the United States they saw to it that for every section of land that was marked and surveyed, that they would set aside a couple of sections of land for public school use. As they went further west, more land, less livable land in terms of irrigation and so forth, they actually gave more land to the Western States for public use than they did to the Eastern States.

Well, Utah is a beneficiary of that because we have enough land in the public trust to constitute a state the size of New Jersey inside of the state of Utah. That's how much public LAND Trust there are out there. So what happens is those lands get leased for mineral rights, for recreation purposes, for businesses that want to build on them, and the lease monies and all of the returns and the profits from that go into a general fund. That fund is then distributed on an annual basis to schools.

Years ago in the 1980s, a well-informed PTA mom at the time, found out about the laws that governed LAND Trust in the state of Utah and realized that they weren't really being safeguarded as they should be. The legislature was using LAND Trust money outside of the intended scope. She helped the legislature pass laws that really safeguarded and built fences around the LAND Trust initiative that protected those monies. And it grew from a very small amount at the time in 1985-ish to over, I think we have well over $3.2 billion dollars. That’s billion with a “B” in the LAND Trust program today. And so we get a distribution at the school level each year. This year, Jordan School District is going to receive $8.3 million. That accounts to about $145 per student.

Anthony Godfrey:
What that means is that if you're on a School Community Council, you're part of the group that by law helps allocate the money from LAND Trust. You have to approve that LAND Trust plan. And that means that if you want to join a School Community Council, you get to play a part in allocating a portion of that $8 million to make sure that it is meeting the highest academic need in a school, which obviously the Chromebooks that you were involved in allocating money for qualify for that for sure.

Lisa Eskesen:
That's one great example and there's some other great projects and it really is specific to the school's needs.

Anthony Godfrey:
It involves school staff, but the membership always has to include more parents than school staff members. That just shows the importance of parent voices and how we use that money and also how we guide the work of our schools.

Lisa Eskesen:
Yeah, the requirements for the School Community Council, we need to have a two parent majority on each of them. So it includes some staff members from the school. It includes the principal, but the majority of it always does need to be parents of students, parents or guardians of students who are enrolled at the school.

Anthony Godfrey:
What does it mean for you as a parent to be able to be involved in this way at your child's school over the years?

Lisa Eskesen:
I've been involved at my kids' schools in various ways over the last several years. I've done some PTA. I volunteered in classrooms and I enjoy all of it. I really think it's all important. This is just another way that I felt like I could be involved. It works for me. It's something I'm interested in. I like the conversations that we have on the School Community Council, the issues kind of just overseeing some of the things going on at the school. It's a great way to kind of get a pulse on the school of what's happening there, get to know some of the administration and the staff there, and then also to work together with other parents in representing the community, the student community at that school and what their needs might be.

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back find out how you can be a voice and play a vital role at your school as part of a School Community Council.

Never miss an episode of The Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

Break:
Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

Anthony Godfrey:
Sometimes busy parents with kids in school may be concerned about the level of time involvement that's required to be a part of a School Community Council. What has your experience been over the years in terms of how much time it takes and what  does that look like just in terms of the meetings and the amount of time that you've had to spend?

Lisa Eskesen:
Each council is required to meet at least four times a year, so that's actually not too bad. Four times during the school year. I've only seen maybe twice where we've had to meet one extra time maybe for budget needs or you know some special project or something like that needs to be met to discuss. But otherwise it's just four meetings a year. Those meetings can last you know one to two hours. As we get close to the end of the school year and we're talking about the LAND Trust funds and that budget, some of those conversations can be a little bit longer as we dig into some of the details of that. But otherwise it's four meetings a year generally.

Anthony Godfrey:
And I know there are a number of times when we go to a School Community Council because we have a question that we want parent input on. So we take it to the School Community Council. For example, the dress code policy, when the Board was considering a change in dress code policy, we took months going to each School Community Council at the secondary level to go over those changes. We really got some great input from those groups. Were you a part of any of those discussions?

Lisa Eskesen:
Yes, I was there for some of those. The other thing that I can think of is related to boundary changes. And it's not that the Community Council has any more sway with the district or anything like that but we're there to represent the community of the students. So if we have that information we can help answer questions with other parents of students at the school and maybe get some feedback that we can then take back to the council and discuss for things that might be helpful as the Board is making some of those decisions.

Mike Anderson:
In fact I remember going out to Lisa's School Community Council to talk about a pending boundary change. We got great feedback from the Community Council. Lisa specifically asked some really great questions that we were able to bring back and help inform the process and consider alternatives.

Anthony Godfrey:
What are some of the other responsibilities of the School Community Council?

Mike Anderson:
I think one good example of an area where the School Community Council has to be involved by law is with the Teacher and Student Success Act commonly known as the TSSA. That was created by the legislature in 2019 and it's funded in large part similar to how School LAND Trust is allocated on a per student basis. It ends up being a fairly sizable amount and it grows each year. It's an ongoing source of funding that the legislature has allocated. Now the School Community Council helps create the plan. They don't approve the TSSA plan, that's set forth by the Board and ultimately the School Board does approve that and they create the framework on which that's supposed to be based, but the TSSA requires School Community Council input on the plan.

Anthony Godfrey:
The TSSA is just another way that the state is putting money directly to schools and one of the reasons they're willing to do that is because they know that parents will be involved in helping allocate those funds. TSSA money and LAND Trust money is increasing every year.

Mike Anderson:
It is. In fact, it's pretty remarkable. I mentioned earlier the per student amount for LAND Trust is about $145. It's similar with TSSA but you get a large high school and they're dealing with around $700,000 worth of pretty flexible money when you combine the TSSA and the LAND Trust plans. The Community Council has a pretty direct say and a lot of input as to how that's spent.

School Community Councils also review the digital citizenship requirements for the school. Principals will often bring the school student handbook with them and make sure they are familiar with the rules and get input from both the teachers and the parents on the council. I think that's an important component that the School Community Council really gives key stakeholder groups a voice.

You've got the principal who's automatically seated on the council, does vote but is not elected of course. You've got faculty members, teachers from the school that also serve on the council and as Lisa mentioned there has to be at least a two parent majority on the council. The baseline for that at the elementary and middle schools are four parents and two faculty members or two employees and at the high school that jumps up to six parents and four staff members. If they feel like those numbers need to be adjusted because of interest or because of a lot of input from the school they can be adjusted through what we call the rules of order and procedure and the School Community Council votes on those. Those are actually posted and kind of the rules that govern the council and the state law is pretty specific on how those are to be carried out and executed. It's a great way to allow the flexibility to tailor the needs of the school through the School Community Council.

Anthony Godfrey:
Let's talk about how those meetings are run because the principal is a part of that meeting automatically as are a few staff members but it's chaired by a parent. Tell me about how that works.

Lisa Eskesen:
Correct. So while it is a principal who is automatically placed the chair is a parent, it is led by a parent so that just I think underscores the need for that parent involvement. The principal, the school staff they don't run the meetings. The principal can suggest items maybe to put on the agenda but it is ultimately up to the chair and the member of the council for what items actually get discussed and placed on that agenda.

Anthony Godfrey:
From a school perspective, I know that having a strong School Community Council chair who makes the most of those meetings and having involved parents as members of the School Community Council is a huge support to the principal. It really helps things go well so it's an important dynamic there that's established between the chair and the principal.

Lisa Eskesen:
Definitely. It absolutely is.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, Lisa, thank you very much for all the time you've spent over the years being part of that School Community Council. A lot of great things have happened as a result of that. I don't know all the School Community Council presidents of course but I've definitely heard your name associated with great things happening out there.

Mike, thank you. You've overseen this for many years in the training that's offered to new School Community Council members so thank you for all the support you give those parents and staff members making decisions at the school level to help support our students and our staff.

Mike Anderson:
Thanks for having me.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

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