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 Carol Mejia, SCSBA executive assistant to the executive director, is leaving the association after 19 years of exemplary years of service. Mejia, whose last day is Friday, May 8, 2009, began working for SCSBA in policy services in 1987. She has assisted three executive directors, including John Cone, Evelyn Berry , and Paul Krohne. In her duties she also assisted with board of director functions and duties. “Without a doubt, Carol’s tenure at SCSBA can only be described as outstanding. Her personal commitment to consistently providing high quality and consistent service to SCSBA, coupled with her unwavering loyalty to the association, should serve as a model for all of us,” said SCSBA Executive Director Paul Krohne. “Carol has demonstrated the highest level of professionalism in all that she does.”
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Registration is underway for this year’s NSBA Southern Region Conference, set for July 8 - 10 at the Peabody Hotel in Little Rock , Arkansas.
The Arkansas School Boards Association is pleased to host this year’s conference, which offers participants the chance to attend informative discussion sessions and meet with colleagues from other southern region states. In addition to promoting public education and school board service, the annual conference promotes the exchange of information regarding public school policies, education advances, school finances and related issues.
Registration fees are $325 before April 30 and $350 after April 30. The fee, which is due no later than June 19, includes a ticket to the opening reception July 8 and tickets for breakfast and to the evening tour and reception on July 9.
A nightly room rate is available for $135, plus taxes and fees, and can be reserved by calling 1.800.732.2639.
The NSBA Southern Region consists of the following states: Alabama , Arkansas , Florida , Georgia , Louisiana , Mississippi , North Carolina , South Carolina , Tennessee , Texas , and Virginia .
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HILTON HEAD ISLAND – The Orangeburg Consolidated School District Five Board of Trustee’s advocacy effort during the 2008 legislative session received the 2008 Legislative Advocacy Program of the Year award presented by the South Carolina School Boards Association (SCSBA).
The board received the award during SCSBA’s annual Legislative and Advocacy Conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Hilton Head Island and no one could have been happier than Lisa Jenkins who is one of the newest members of the board and responsible for organizing the district’s grassroots advocacy network.
“I am ecstatic our advocacy network won this award,” said Jenkins. “I am so happy for the members of the community who have agreed to work with us on our advocacy efforts, the district and the board of trustees. Although we still have a lot of work to do, it is absolutely wonderful to have won this award because it lets us know we’re on the right path.”
While a fairly new organization, the Orangeburg Five Grassroots Advocacy Network program was established by the school board in November 2007 to engage parents and community leaders in speaking out on local and legislative proposals impacting public schools. Each board member invited at least five people to become network members who agreed to become more informed about legislative issues impacting schools and more active in helping to shape decisions at the state and federal levels.
After attending an orientation program, members were provided with a handbook developed by the district to assist their efforts in communicating with lawmakers concerning education legislation.
“We have experienced much success and have been truly encouraged by the energy, enthusiasm and willingness to advocate for public education in the county, the state, and on a national level,” the board’s application states. “The advocacy network was very effective in sending emails, letter, making phone calls to let our legislative delegation know how important the changes to the Education Accountability Act were to us and to public education all across the state.”
The group’s other efforts included meetings with the legislative delegation and assistance to the district in implementing a school uniform program in the elementary and middle schools. The group’s vocal support of the program generated support by parents, students and staff and led to successful implementation.
“We have a conscientious and hard working group of advocates,” said Jenkins. “However, we couldn’t have come this far without the help of Lexington School District One, the School Boards Association, and SCSBA Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator Duane Cooper who played a pivotal role in ensuring that we did this the right way.”
The network’s work throughout the year was cited in local newspaper columns, including one written by one of its members, Dr. Howard Hill.
“When we asked Mrs. Jenkins to coordinate our advocacy efforts, I had no idea she would bring us so far so quickly,” said Board Chairman Julius Page. “This award is the culmination of her hard work and that of the community and education conscious volunteers who have agreed to be the folks to make our advocacy machine run. We’re proud of having won this award because this is just another reason why everyday is a great day in Orangeburg County.”
The Legislative Advocacy Program of the Year award is presented annually and focuses on SCSBA’s mission for school boards to be the leading voice advocating for quality public education and recognizes those school boards that have developed and implemented effective legislative advocacy programs.
“Local school boards have always been our best lobbyists for public education,” said SCSBA Executive Director Dr. Paul Krohne. “The advocacy network in Orangeburg proves there is strength and credibility in numbers voicing their opinions in Columbia and Washington, D.C. With the alarming increase of mandates from the state and federal level impacting local public schools, it is important for local communities to join with their school board in advocating its desires for their public schools.”
School boards applying for the award must show leadership in supporting and executing best advocacy program practices that impact the legislative process to improve public education. Other award criteria include:
- a board policy supporting advocacy though board activities; and
- a description of the board’s legislative advocacy plan for this past legislative session to include:
- procedures for identifying legislative goals based on SCSBA’s legislative priorities and resolutions;
- roles and responsibilities for the board’s legislative contact (BLC);
- engaging key contacts around education legislative issues and advocacy; and
- message development and delivery with key contacts.
SCSBA is a non-profit organization serving as a source of information and a statewide voice for school boards governing the state’s 85 school district boards.
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By Paul Krohne
SCSBA Executive Director
 If there’s any good at all to be found in South Carolina’s fifth straight year of debate over tax credits/vouchers for private schools, maybe it’s this. After years of feigning concern for poor students in struggling schools, of pretending to believe that taking money from public schools might make them better, we are finally debating what this plan has always really been about -- subsidizing private education for the few, at the expense of public education for the many.
The real goals of tuition tax credit/voucher legislation were on full display during recent testimony before a Senate subcommittee.
There was little talk of rescuing poor students from underperforming schools. The esoteric and largely discredited theory that competition might advance public education was nowhere on the list of priorities among the South Carolinians who spoke in favor of the legislation.
Instead, private school representatives said plainly that they are struggling to stay afloat in the midst of economic recession. Parents whose children already attend private schools said plainly that they need the state’s help to keep them there.
Even Sen. Robert Ford, who sponsored the legislation, was refreshingly candid. “What we’re trying to do is help those parents...making $49-50,000 a year and spending $19,000 to educate their children. They deserve a break.”
In fact, any pretense that tuition tax credit legislation ever had anything to do with poor families in poorly performing schools was dispensed with months ago, when the bill was introduced.
Poor families can’t benefit from tax credits, because they don’t earn enough to pay state taxes. Scholarships paid for by civic-minded businesses and individuals might or might not materialize. After all, anyone interested in funding any child’s private school education can already do so, and deduct their contribution from their taxes.
Even with a scholarship, there is little chance that the neediest children would be accepted by good private schools, and little chance that their parents could send them there. Most private schools charge substantially more than the $2,500 this legislation would allow -- not even considering added fees for books, extracurricular activities, food, and transportation -- putting them well outside the reach of low-income families.
But there’s a lot to be said for a clear-eyed debate. Here’s what we know:
The Educational Opportunity Act would create opportunities mostly for people already well able to afford them. Two-thirds of South Carolina filers pay less than $800 in income taxes, so they wouldn’t qualify for the full credit or put much of a dent in private school tuition. The biggest tax breaks would go to families in the highest brackets.
It would help families who don’t need it at great cost to the 690,000-plus public schoolchildren who do. Schools already struggling to absorb hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts over the past year would lose another $174 million, according to the state Board of Economic Advisors, if the legislation passed.
Worst of all, it would set up a dual system of education in a state that needs to focus on advancing the system we have -- the only one that is universally accessible to every child and fully accountable to the taxpayers who fund it.
South Carolina is not a wealthy state, even in the best of times. We cannot afford the huge expense of bailing out private schools, or exempting parents who choose to use them from helping to fund the schools that serve us all.
We also can’t afford more years of debate over a plan with no promise to help the vast majority of our children and no potential to contribute to a more prosperous future for our state.
This week, the General Assembly has an opportunity to put this fruitless distraction behind us. Now that the curtains have been pulled back, the pretenses abandoned, rejecting this idea -- once and for all -- is the only responsible course for our schools and our state.
(Editor’s Note: Dr. Paul Krohne is executive director of the South Carolina School Boards Association, a non-profit organization serving as a source of information and a statewide voice for boards governing the 85 school districts. He has more than 30 years of experience serving public education.)
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