Joint Village Board- School Board Meeting
TLDR/ Key Points:
First joint meeting (in many years anyway) of the School Board and Village Board occurred last night.
There is a great operational/ informal relationship between the Village Board and School Board staff
There was broad support by both boards for developing a cadence for joint meetings
Early thoughts on goals for the joint board included development of a shared strategic vision and joint advocacy for school funding
Last night, we had a wonderful joint meeting of the School Board and the Village Board.
There’s been some momentum for some time to convene the Village Board and the School Board jointly. In fact, there was previously a “Bi-Board” years ago which met on a regular basis for joint planning.
Since then, our respective boards have worked seamlessly on an operational and informal level, thanks to our outstanding staff (this has been so successful that Whitefish Bay won an award in 2004 for intergovernmental cooperation). Our Village staff work regularly with the District staff on multiple fronts. Some more visible examples include:
Crossing guards provided by the district but for the benefit of public safety
Police officer provided by the village as a liaison for student safety
Public health nurse provided by the village for the district
Equipment sharing by both entities as needed
Maintenance at Craig Counsell Field and Armory Parks provided by the district
Refuse/ recycling collection at school buildings provided by the village
More recently, both boards have reconsidered the notion of formal joint meetings for strategic planning. Pulling together the boards makes sense in a lot of ways. Like many of you, my wife and I moved to the village for the schools. The schools are a significant common reference point for how we feel about village life. Making sure we are doing everything we can to champion our school district, then, would makes sense as a Village Board priority, a sentiment we as Village Board members all shared.
The School Board has a phenomenal vision and set of goals. To achieve those, they have developed a Focus Plan/ Initiatives. We as a Village Board could look at how to support those Initiatives outside the schools:
Promoting educational equity in the community
Continuing a tradition of excellence of supporting our students in the community
Making the community an exceptional place for students
Promoting a culture of safety for students in the community
Promoting IQ and EQ/ social learning in the community
In addition to the strategic partnership, there’s also a potential for us to work together to improve funding for our school district. It’s a testament to the creativity and commitment by School District administrators and educators that Whitefish Bay has been able to maintain such high educational standards while state funding for public education has slipped (Wisconsin has slipped from 12th to 26th nationally in public school funding over the past 6 years and is now 5.6% below the average). While things have worked so far, it’s apparent this will not be tenable in the long term.
In the end, we all came away invigorated by the potential synergies. Our respective leaderships will be looking to plan a follow-up meeting, hopefully with a regular cadence of some sort!
-Jay