Sunday, May 29, 2016

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Education Service District

With the recent occurrence of Towel Day, I’ve been fondly remembering the hilarious sci-fi spoof “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” .    As you may recall, this absurd tale begins when alien wrecking ships arrive to destroy the Earth, which has been condemned to make space for an interstellar bypass.    When the humans complain, they are dismissed with “All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaints. “   When I first read this, I thought it was taking the flaws of human politics and bureaucracy to a ridiculous extreme.   But now that I’m seeing the equivalent happen in our school district, I’m finding it somewhat less humorous than I used to.

Recently a board seat on the Northwest Regional Education Service District (NWRESD) was up for reappointment.   This is one of the most important positions appointed by the Hillsboro School Board, as it helps oversee a body that provides education services to over 100K students across 4 counties, with a budget in excess of $100 million dollars.   You would think that when such a seat is available, we should announce it to the public and call for applicants, like we do for our (relatively powerless) HSD Curriculum and Budget committees.   However, an agenda item to confirm the only applicant just popped up on our May school board agenda, without any previous announcement from the district.     

When I asked how this opening was publicized, the answer was “We posted on our NWRESD website and emailed the superintendent”.   So, for any non-superintendent to find out about this opening, they would have had to be continually checking the NWRESD website.    Even though most board and commission openings are published in local newspapers, or at least announced in advance by the board which is appointing them, none of this happened in this case.   Note that in many other parts of the state, ESDs are elected like regular school boards, so many eligible citizens may not even realize they need to watch the ESD site rather than the general elections site to know about openings on this board.  By keeping the announcement so low-key, the ESD is essentially reserving the position for a well-connected insider.    


Thus, I proposed that we delay the appointment and issue a real call for applicants.    Unfortunately, the rest of our board disagreed with me, saying that the current action was a result of a “well-defined process,” so we could discuss future changes but had to appoint this year based on the existing process.   I hope we do follow through and make some real changes here, rather than continuing the functional equivalent of posting ESD board openings on Alpha Centauri.

1 comment:

  1. I can't figure out how to send an email on here... I own a café near the Human Bean in Hillsboro actually. I've been reading a lot of the issues you talk about in your blog. I'd be interested in going to one of your meet ups and learning more about local responses to some of these national issues. Perhaps get involved myself one day. My email is ashepard2013@hotmail.com Thanks! Alan

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