From Joe Monroe
Monroe
To the Editor:
As we recognize School Board Appreciation Week, I want to take a moment to express my sincere appreciation for the incredible community members who serve on our school board.
School board service is a unique form of public service. Our board members are elected by our community, and with that comes an important responsibility: to listen to the people they represent and bring those perspectives to the decisions they make for our school district. I have a front-row seat to that process as Superintendent, and I have tremendous respect for the way our board approaches this responsibility.
Our board members make time to hear from parents, staff, students, community members, and taxpayers. They ask questions. They listen to different perspectives. They consider feedback, even when it is difficult or when there is not a clear consensus. Most importantly, they understand that listening to our community is not simply a courtesy. It is an essential part of serving the community.
That responsibility is particularly important as we navigate the significant fiscal challenges facing public education.
We are being asked to make difficult decisions about staffing, programming, and educational services while also recognizing that every dollar we spend comes from local taxpayers. These decisions often involve competing priorities and legitimate differences of opinion. There are rarely simple answers.
Our board members have the difficult job of weighing those perspectives and ultimately making decisions on behalf of the entire community. I admire their willingness to have those difficult conversations, as well as their commitment to understanding the impact of decisions on our students and staff while recognizing their responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer resources.
This work is critical to our future if we hope to continue to be an attractive and thriving community.
Much of what our school board does happens behind the scenes, spending countless hours reviewing budgets, analyzing policies, addressing community concerns, and making decisions that impact our schools for years to come. This is challenging work, made all the more notable by the fact that our board members have consistently chosen to decline financial compensation, making Monroe one of the very few completely uncompensated school boards in Wisconsin.
During School Board Appreciation Week, I hope our community will take a moment to thank the following school board members for their service: Jim Curran, Teresa Keehn, Phil Vosberg, Nicole Josephs, Terri Montgomery, Mike Davis, Steve Mayer, Caleb Ahrens, and Melissa Phillips.
On behalf of our students, staff, families, and community, thank you for your time, your thoughtful consideration, your sincere desire to listen, and your commitment to our schools. Public education is stronger because people are willing to serve, and our community is better for having leaders like you.
