Welcome to local public service : Missouri public school board members navigating their first year
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You have just learned the results of your local public school board election that you were a candidate and you won! Now what? In the next 6 - 14 days, you will be sworn-in as a public school board member and will immediately begin voting on items that will impact the children, families, community, and district. How have you prepared? Did you prepare for this, or did you focus on what it meant to be a candidate to win an election for a volunteer elected position in the state of Missouri? How will your fellow board members, board leadership, superintendent, district, and state help you be the best board member possible? This study investigates this scenario. As a resurgence of hyper-politicization and focus has been given to public school boards in the 21st century, this study works to provide a snapshot of the first year school board member experience in the state of Missouri in order to best understand how to support them in enacting positive meaningful change for their communities. This case study utilizes sensemaking theory and educational research design to uncover the first year experience of seven public school board members in Missouri that were elected in the April 2023 municipal elections. Each board member comes from a different district spanning the variety of district demographics and sizes that are found in Missouri. The case study uncovers a broad common experience for school board members in Missouri that reveals a need for stronger supports in relational development, knowledge acquisition, and preparation for major decisions that they routinely will be making as school board members. Additionally, there are positive and negative experiences in the first year that occur for some participants that help provide useful guidance on the types of tools, resources, and professional development programming that can be done to best support newly elected school board members and school boards generally as they work to address the various issues impacting their communities.
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Ph. D.