Smith named school board chair for 2005-06

If the school board were a ship, Jeff Smith would be captain for the coming year. And except for one member, he’d be dealing with a brand new crew.

A six-year veteran of the board, Smith was chosen chairman for 2005-06 at the last meeting. Glen Lasken, also a six-year veteran and chairman for the past year, became vice chairman.

Two new members, Rob Corrigan and Mike Gould, elected last May, have now taken office. And a third will be appointed soon to replace Tom Coffield, who is leaving the board at the end of this month.

So how does the new chairman view the year ahead?

“One of the things high on my priority list,” he said in an interview last week, “is to sit down and develop a fairly comprehensive statement of mission or goals so that we can make sure that this new board that we have is all headed in the same direction. We’ll want to give direction to everybody in the district, including the superintendent, both in general ways about what we want to accomplish and some more specific, measurable kinds of objectives.”

He qualified that by saying, “People sometimes invest months in this kind of a process and I don’t envisage that…I think this is something we might do in four to six hours in two or three meetings.”

Smith has one goal already in mind: “We need to improve the availability of courses generally and elective courses specifically at the high school. We had large numbers of students this year who had trouble finding good courses they wanted to take. We need to do a better job of developing alternatives that meet the needs of the students.”

Another issue for the board will be “dealing with the very large fifth and sixth grade classes, a problem complicated by the lack of space in the elementary school.” A plan for coping with that is on track, which foresees moving the fifth grade to the middle school in the fall of 2006.

A more immediate need is to find a new principal for the elementary school, now that Tim Comfort, who has been principal for the past 10 years, is being given new districtwide duties (see story Page 1).

Smith last served as chairman during 2002-03, when the board was preoccupied with the construction of a new high school and, in the spring, by the search for a new superintendent to replace Steve Swisher, who retired. No capital or personnel problems comparable to those are on the horizon.

But budgetary restrictions, as ever, will continue to occupy the board’s attention. Smith, a retired college professor who taught public finance, has a tough-minded view of that. “Money is always a problem,” he acknowledged, “but I believe that we’ve got to stop moaning and complaining about money all the time. We should take the dollars that we have and make darn sure that we spend them in the best way we can.”

Nor is the chairman intimidated by the newness of his crew. He remembers that when he was first elected to the board six years ago, four of the five members were new.

He and Lasken had just been elected while Heather Wester and Steve Keeton had just been appointed to fill vacancies that spring. The only holdover member was the late Bill Reed, who had served for seven years.

“We were fortunate to have the leadership of Bill Reed and Steve Swisher to guide us along,” Smith recalls.

Nonetheless, he says he is “really excited about our new board.” He noted that although Corrigan and Gould have just taken their seats, both have been attending board meetings and paying close attention to school affairs for a long time.