Arizona considers mandatory training for school board members
School-board members would lead more effectively and make better financial decisions if they were required to receive training, a state lawmaker contends. Rep. Andrew Tobin, R-Paulden, is sponsoring House Bill 2286, which would require school-board members to receive instruction in school finance, open-meeting laws, governing-board responsibilities and conflict resolution. Tobin's bill has won a unanimous endorsement from the House Education K-12 Committee. In doing so, the committee amended the bill to require that board members receive the training within 120 days of being elected or appointed and to allow private and public organizations to offer the training. Under the bill, the state Department of Education would coordinate the seminars and the organizations providing the training would determine the length and content. The Arizona School Boards Association is pushing for the change because of a couple of publicized instances in which school-board members violated the open-meetings law and wasted taxpayer money, said Panfilo Contreras, the group's executive director. “We had a few not-so-positive stories in the media regarding school-board members gone awry,” he said. “It only takes one or two to get into the news and create a bad picture.” Contreras said the mandatory training wouldn't be necessary if all of the state's roughly 1,200 school-board members attended optional leadership seminars offered by his organization. He said his group offers about 150 hours of optional training annually to all its members. Other groups, including the Arizona Association of School Business Officials, also offer training. Amy Rezzonico, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said her office wouldn't comment on Tobin's bill: “Our position is officially neutral.”
Source: Arizona Republic, 3/3/08, By Daniel Raven (Cronkite News Service)
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Editor’s Note: As of 2004, at least 18 states required some mandatory training for school board members, according to an NSBA survey of state school boards associations.]