5/3/05 -- Over the next year, incoming NSBA President Joan Schmidt will have the opportunity to meet thousands of school board members across the nation. And she intends to share with them a simple but important message: Keep fighting the good fight.
“I want school boards to feel strengthened in their resolve to support quality education,” she says. “We dare not back down. We dare not cut our programs. We absolutely must not allow those who provide funding to renege on their responsibilities.”
Schmidt, a 22-year trustee of a small high school in rural Montana, has plenty of experience in fighting for public education. Not only has she served on the NSBA Board of Directors since 1997, she has served on the Montana School Boards Association (MTSBA) Board of Directors since 1992 and is a former president of MTSBA.
The dedication she’s shown in her years of service highlights her passion for education, which can be traced back to her years as a teacher and school volunteer.
According to Schmidt: “There’s no such thing as a retired teacher. There’s this deep caring about education, and I have a sense that my teaching skills will help me make a real difference.”
The NSBA presidency offers Schmidt a highly visible platform for speaking out on education issues, and she already has plans to raise awareness on three specific topics:
• The need to protect music and arts programs in schools.
As a musician herself, Schmidt is well aware of the research on how music affects student achievement -- and that music and the other arts are a tempting target for school boards when budget cuts are needed.
But, she says, the arts are “important to us as human beings, and we need to stand firm. No matter how important the academic subjects that are tested, we cannot allow these to be our only focus.”
• The need to ensure the health and wellness of children in school.
Growing concerns over childhood obesity help fuel her interest in this issue, but Schmidt says she also believes that “schools are a place where kids can learn a lot about how to take care of themselves.”
In addition to teaching nutrition and supporting physical education programs, school boards also must deal with the mental health of students, she says. That means providing funding so schools have enough counselors.
• The need for early childhood learning.
No child chooses to grow up in poverty, and no child should have to enter school at a disadvantage in language and social skills, Schmidt says. So school boards need to put a higher profile on the needs of their communities.
“How are we going to teach [disadvantaged children] to read when they’ve never held a book in their hands?” she asks. “The disparities are so real, so significant, and I think they’re one of our greatest obstacles to teaching.”
Underlying these three issues is a principle that Schmidt hopes she also can encourage school board members to embrace: Schools need to focus on the needs of the child as a whole.
“I think we’ve had a very strong focus on test scores and high-stakes tests,” she says, “and if we don’t back up and look at what the whole child needs, we’re going to get a little off-center . . . we will lose sight of what really matters in a child’s education.”
Asked about the challenges facing NSBA, Schmidt says the next year will see the organization advocate strongly for adequate education funding and relief from the regulatory demands of federal laws that make it difficult for local school boards to respond to the needs of their students.
Schmidt also voices high praise for the NSBA Board of Directors, and she says she’d “like to see our board become an absolute model of how a really great nonprofit board operates.”
To do that, she hopes to see the NSBA Board develop a set of “board standards” for itself that, for example, calls upon directors to commit to a specified amount of training annually.
As a trustee for Fairfield High School, which serves 173 students, Schmidt says local matters also will demand her attention in the next year. She also serves as a non-voting member of the Fairfield school board.
The big challenge for school officials in Fairfield is maintaining the quality of instruction with limited resources.
“I’m worried about holding programs intact,” she says. “We have some strong programs, and I really think we need to see continuous improvement. But it’s hard to do when you’re fighting for your [financial] life.”
But the school district will meet the challenge, she says. Her community is located in Montana ranch country, where “hard-working folks” pull together to make things happen for the better.
“We have gravel roads, and when you drive down the road and see a big rock, you stop and throw it in the ditch,” she says. Not that long ago, the senior class donated money originally raised for the annual senior trip to help with the medical expenses for an elementary school student with cancer.
A Montana native, Schmidt grew up in Great Falls and was an English teacher before marrying a rancher and settling down on her husband’s family farm outside Fairfield.
After working closely with her husband, Arthur, for the past 35 years, Schmidt says, she’s developed a versatile collection of skills. “I can drive a truck, feed cattle, or shingle a roof.”
One of her great loves, however, is music. Despite a busy schedule, Schmidt finds time to manage the music program at her church and often serves as the church organist. One of her recent projects was to coach a fourth grader who was singing in a local talent show.
Taking office as NSBA’s president is a notable accomplishment, and Schmidt was not alone in sharing that memorable day.
In the audience as Schmidt addressed the General Session April 19 were her two children, Jacob, a systems analyst/computer programmer with an insurance firm, and Sara, a teacher at an international school in Seoul, South Korea.
Also in attendance were her 86-year-old mother, four sisters, and numerous nieces and nephews.