School Board Members are Precious

In the inaugural address I delivered on November 20 2004 when I was sworn in as Governor of Texas for a Day I spoke about the trust voters place in those they elect to public office.

I said that public opinion polls notwithstanding I believe -- outside the clergy and the healing arts -- that there is no higher or nobler calling in our society than public service.

The men and women who serve on local school boards are an especially dedicated group of public servants.  To honor this special group of men and women Governor Rick Perry designated January as the month in which we recognize school board members.

These locally elected community volunteers spend countless hours days weeks and months meeting and working to ensure that the school districts they serve run as efficiently as possible.

Acting much like corporate boards of directors school boards work with the professional school superintendents whose jobs may be compared to the chief executive officer of a corporation.

School boards have always played an important role in public education.  That role increased significantly in 1995 when the Texas Legislature returned a great deal of control of public schools back to the local level.

The Legislature made this decision based on the belief that school boards who are elected by and are accountable to local voters could respond more quickly to local concerns than could a Legislature that meets 140 days every other year.

In many ways returning much of the control of public schools back to the local level only made school board members’ jobs more difficult.  They had more decisions to make and had to take full responsibility for them since fewer mandates were being handed down from Austin.

Serving on a school board is arguably one of the most difficult jobs in all public service because school trustees make decisions that impact Texans’ most precious possession their children and parents do not always think rationally when it comes to their children.

School trustees go to church with shop at the grocery store with see at sporting events and live next door to the people whose children’s lives are impacted by their decisions.  As a result when people don’t like a school board’s decisions the volunteers who are serving are very likely to hear about it either at the post office or during a school board meeting.

Since school board members are not paid the knowledge of a job well done and the thanks of the community is the only reward they receive.

I encourage you to join Governor Perry and me in recognizing the service of Texas’ thousands of school board members and thank them for the work that they do for Texas schools and Texas school children.