An interesting (and long overdue) change took effect at the May 29th meeting of the Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) Governing Board. The board dais was once again restored to and reserved for the board members who are elected by the community to represent the constituents of the district.
I don’t know when district superintendents began inviting themselves up to have a seat on the dais among the elected officials of the district (that was not the case when I served on the PUSD board) or why they would think so little of elected officials and the office they hold to deem it appropriate. Or quite frankly, why board members think so little of the office they hold to allow superintendents to even nominally abase the office in such a manner.
I don’t profess to know in how many districts this is occurring. However, it does seem to be increasing and quite frankly one is one too many.
On the surface this may not seem like a big deal, but I assure you it is. In a representative republic such as ours there is a huge difference between the people we choose to elect who write our laws, policies, tax us, expend our precious dollars and the bureaucrats who are hired to implement and oversee the policies and the budgets adopted by those we elect.
Superintendents are there to serve the board and by extension the community, not represent themselves as part of the board. But that is exactly what happens when the superintendents are on the dais with the elected board during a public meeting. It implies the employee is equal to the elected officials. Whether intended or not, this demeans the elected office.
Regardless of how vehemently any of us may disagree with any individual elected official it is imperative that we always respect the office they hold. The office, not the office holder, must be unassailable otherwise our representative republic will be lost to a bureaucracy.
Kudos to President Heather Rooks and the PUSD board. I hope that more school boards across Arizona look to the example they set to protect the dignity of the office to which they have been elected.