Group wants public’s opinion of Lafayette board

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) - One education advocacy group is asking for the public’s feedback on how the Lafayette Parish School Board conducts itself and its business during its board meetings.

Stephen Bartley, chairman of the Lafayette Parish Public Education Stakeholders Council, says his group has created an online feedback form as part of the group’s Project Involve initiative to gauge public opinion about school board governance.

The form asks meeting attendees or viewers to rate the board based on their own observations, like whether board members were prepared for the meeting or whether they used district data or other research when making statements or decisions.

The Advocate reports (https://bit.ly/1gKcis2 ) the form is available on the group’s website, www.lapesc.com, in time for the school board’s first regular board meeting Wednesday.

The council was involved in recent public education round table discussions sponsored by eight other partner organizations as a way to create a community vision for public education which will be unveiled during a public event on May 28. Participants in the round tables said they’d prefer less micro-management and more focus on student achievement.

The Project Involve survey is another way for the public to give its input on the school board’s performance, said Jan Swift, the group’s vice chairwoman.

“What we’re trying to do is get an unbiased look at what the community thinks,” she said. “We’ve gotten good feedback from the round table discussions that were done about a month and a half ago. This will be specific feedback on board governance.”

The information gathered will be presented to school board members and to the public prior to qualifying for the school board elections in August, Swift said. The group doesn’t make political endorsements, but does plan to hold a school board candidate forum before the fall election.

“We hope it will raise the level of awareness of elected officials and administrators about what the community believes,” she said. “It’s an observation form on how the school board is governing within its own perimeters. If you look at the questions, it’s about: how is the school board doing.”

The group designed the form to make it more accessible to participants.

___

Information from: The Advocate, https://theadvocate.com