OTTUMWA —
The school board advises district administration. But the board has its own advisors, too.
Once a year, the Ottumwa school district’s Community Advisory Committee participates in a board meeting. On Monday, the board and the committee will review results of tests taken by students to see how well they are learning — and how well the district is teaching.
“The advisory is our ‘critical friend,’” said Superintendent Davis Eidahl. “We share a lot of the district data with the advisory, and they ask the tough questions. There’s great conversation that takes place during and after those meetings.”
Around 50 people are on the panel, and though they are hand-picked by the district, administrators say they try to recruit a diverse group of district residents.
“Each member serves a four-year term,” Eidahl said. “It’s a great microcosm of our community, a wide range of representation across our district.”
In fact, past community advisors who have met with the Courier have included parents, a pastor, teachers, a secretary, a physician, a couple of high school students and several business people.
The community members on the committee are the ones who suggested to the board that they wanted more than kids who could do math. They wanted good communicators, informed decision-makers and decent citizens walking across that graduation stage.
They also pushed ideas not utilized by every school district. For example, in school, the district must put into use only research-based strategies, those programs that have been proven to work.
It’s not all flowcharts and paperwork for the advisory committee. In March, about half go out and shadow a student.
“They receive firsthand experience in the life of a student and have direct conversations with students,” said Eidahl.
There too, he said, they work to find students from a broad cross-section of the district, not just college-bound students or those involved in student government.
“That advisory is an educationally informed group spread out through the community and can act as a liaison,” Eidahl said. “If they are informed and knowledgeable, they can help others be informed and knowledgeable.”
For your information
The August school board meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Monday. This month, that work session (with the advisory committee) will meet in the library at Ottumwa High School.
Local News
August 25, 2012
School board listens to community
Community Advisory Committee a ‘critical friend’
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