Come join us for a school board member orientation. We will examine the key ingredients necessary to being a successful contributor to a board’s process and function. The role of a school board is invaluable. It supports and empowers the mission of the school and so each member should understand their responsibility and the part they pay in helping to carry forward the work of God in the lives our young people!

Michigan Camp Meeting 2018: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

<p>Come join us for a school board member orientation. We will examine the key ingredients necessary to being a successful contributor to a board’s process and function. The role of a school board is invaluable. It supports and empowers the mission of the school and so each member should understand their responsibility and the part they pay in helping to carry forward the work of God in the lives our young people!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Education

Jeremy Hall

Board, but Not Bored

Father in heaven, we're thankful for Adventist education.

We're thankful for every single department that we have in our conference that ministers to our people and equips them really to minister to those that need to understand and appreciate the gospel.

And as we focus on Adventist education today, we're grateful for it and we thank you for inspiring your people to have a system of education.

And especially, Lord, as we look at 1 of the most important elements for our schools, which is our board membership.

We pray that your spirit would be with us and that you would enlighten our minds.

We may be few in number, but your word says that where 2 or 3 are gathered, there you are in the midst of them.

And so We ask you to come and be in our midst.

And even though we are just a few, we pray that what we will learn and talk about today will be something that can inspire others and spread out so that we can function effectively for our schools.

So Bored But Not Bored is the title of the presentation.

And before we get into actually the functionality of what a board member does, I think it's important for us to understand our philosophical foundation.

Philosophical foundation is a guide to organizations to help them understand where they're striving towards.

So as they journey forward in their mission, they need to constantly be checking their actions pragmatically against their mission to make sure they're headed in the right direction.

And Seventh-day Adventist education has some overarching principles that are taken from the book Education, and it focuses specifically on our unique aim, our unique focus, and then the product or the fruitage of our focus and aim, which is a specific and distinct outcome.

Well, Education, page 13, says, it's the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers.

Adventist education historically has been viewed as a holistic approach to educate the whole person.

In some instances, we sort of move ourselves away sometimes from that balanced perspective, but philosophically at our roots, that is what we should be.

The harmonious development of the physical, mental, and spiritual powers.

Number 2, our focus is to restore in man the image of his maker.

That is our focus, again, taken from the book Education, and the outcome of that aim and focus is then a different outcome, a strengthened character, a fortified mind, and a recreated soul." And these are all quotes taken from the beginning parts of the book, Education.

Just so you understand a little bit about the breakdown of our governance as a church, We have a wonderful system of governance.

It's not perfect, but it's a structure that has lasted and bore the test of time over a hundred years, obviously.

But if you wonder how a school fits into the overall governance of the church.

You can see here, of course, that we have bold lines and then we have dotted lines.

The bold lines relate to entities within our church that have authoritative and decision-making roles.

And then the dotted lines are where we have more of the advisory or consultative role.

And so obviously the General Conference Executive Committee is the highest governing body in the worldwide church.

In between sessions, the executive committee provides decision-making, and then it goes down to the North American Division, the union conference level, then the local conference executive committee, then heads over to the local board of education, which is a representative board of all the districts across the Michigan conference.

Then you have your individual school board, for instance, the Delphine Junior Academy, where Len is the board chair there.

And then, underneath, excuse me, the local conference office of education, underneath that, rather, is the local school board where, for instance, the Delphi Junior Academy would fall, or Northview, or Grayling.

And basically, the governance of operating and running the school, the hiring of teachers, the management, the oversight of the schools, really is going to come from this entity here.

We'll have a few situations that they might work with.

They'll approve the hiring of superintendent level individuals.

This board of education will deal, again, with more types of things like approving the hiring of teachers, approving the calendar for the school, any major type of systemic change or things of that nature.

The local Conference Board of Education is going to work with, which our office deals with.

I'm considered the secretary of the Conference Board of Education, and then our local school board, and then the principal.

That's the governance structure of our educational system.

So the specific functions of a school board are as follows.

The school board helps ensure that the mission and policies of the school are being carried out.

It also sets policies but it leaves the day-to-day management of policies to the administration.

That's a very important distinction between the board and the local administration.

The board is not to run the school, it is to make sure the school is running well.

Its role is not to run the school, it is to make sure the school is running well.

So they set overarching policies, but it is up to the local administration to carry those policies forward.

Schools function best when boards and administration do not cross over defined lines.

The board acts to ensure the implementation of policies and plans of the Conference Office of Education, develops clear practical objectives in harmony with the SDA educational policy, development of policies unique to local school needs, to support the principal and the home and school program, and to ensure official minutes are taken and recorded for each meeting.

I can't tell you how important this element is Because there are times when we have to go back and we have to look at minutes.

And so major decisions that the board makes should be recorded in official minutes.

And those minutes are sent to the conference office by each school.

And then we as superintendents actually review them, Look at them, sign off.

There are times when I've sent emails, for instance, if a school awards a specific amount of worthy student funds to a family, sometimes schools will mistakenly put the name of the family in the minutes, and that's something that we ask them not to do to protect confidentiality, or even a disciplinary issue, something that Johnny Smith was suspended for, all that we ask is that they say a student was so that we protect the confidentiality.

So sometimes there are things in the minutes that we will look at, we review the budget sheets and so forth.

Continuing on with the functions, consider all operations of the school, participate in school evaluations.

This is incredibly important, especially in our smaller schools.

If you have a bigger school like Great Lakes Adventist Academy, Obviously they have, I don't know, over 20 full-time faculty members.

And so when it comes time for school evaluation at the academy level, you have a three-day visit or a two-and-a-half-day visit.

And so Your principal is going to coordinate all the different subcommittees that are going to look at all of the standards and all of the different aspects of the evaluation, and then those faculty members are going to work on putting together the material for that.

Well, you go to a one-room school or you go to even a 2 or 3 teacher school, your board should play an important part in helping put the document together so that it's not totally and completely on the teacher.

Furthermore, if the board is participating in the school evaluation from a preparatory standpoint, they're going to have a broader perspective and input that will help make the instrument more valid because there's more input on it.

Obviously the support of the Constitution, the bylaws of the school, and support conference-wide educational events help planning of the annual school budget, and capital improvement budgets.

So there's a finance committee that's a subcommittee of the board.

They report to the board, and the board oversees the budget of the school and makes sure that it's being fiscally responsible.

Some other things that board members do, if your church knows that you are a member of the board, then they're expecting you to be someone who's a proponent of the board.

And board chairs should expect their board membership to be marketers.

Because I think we put a lot of finances and money into putting together brochures and putting together all kinds of different things, and that's really, really great.

Adelphi Junior Academy has a wonderful radio ad.

But I think you would agree with me, some of the most powerful advertising that we give or don't give is in our own personage.

How we, you know, talk about the school, our body language about the school, those things board members should really make sure that they own that piece because if church members who could potentially put their kids in the school, see a church member who's not talking positively about the school and just putting out dirty laundry about the school all the time, people are going to say, well, they're on the board.

I'm not going to put my kid in the school.

So they want to create excitement about the school.

The board also acts to ratify recommendations of major discipline issues regarding students and has the ultimate authority regarding the dismissal of a student.

So the principal cannot technically dismiss a student.

What happens in a lot of disciplinary situations, especially at the academy level, is if a student has done something that is egregious enough that they need to not be in attendance at the school anymore, the disciplinary committee will vote to ask them to withdraw from school.

And so the parent has the option to withdraw that student from school.

It's shown as a withdrawal on their transcript, and it's not shown as a dismissal.

If the family refuses to do so, which I've never seen in all my career, then it would have to go to the Board of Education in order for that student to be officially dismissed from the school.

At the local school level, the board would have to vote to dismiss a student.

No, your local board would be the 1 that would vote to dismiss a student.

And when possible, give the family the opportunity to withdraw the student.

You know, it just has a better feel to it.

If the school's contacted for a recommendation, obviously they're not going to lie, but versus going to the next level, they did recognize that things were going well and they chose to withdraw their student.

And then they respond to union curriculum initiatives.

For instance, we don't have any control over the curriculum that we provide for our schools.

The North American Division sets forth the curriculum for our schools and the union helps disseminate that out to the conferences within their field and we kind of answer to the union related to curriculum initiatives.

For instance, we just launched a new elementary Bible curriculum called the Encounter series.

The union provided training for that, brought our teachers in, we provide support to our field, but we are supposed to support the curriculum initiatives that we are given.

We do have representation from across the union that sit on the curriculum committee for the union.

However, for the North American Division, when they select textbooks, there's I believe a textbook committee that's at the division level made up of teachers from across the division that actually select textbooks that then go on the North American Division approved textbook list.

Audience Member 1 No, but I don't have the textbooks in there.

Judy Shull

Age and Behavior

Dear Jesus, thank you so much for bringing us here today.

We thank you for the cooler weather We thank you for the boys and girls you give us to be ministers to them Please lead and guide and all that we do and on our fellowship and in our ministry to them in your name, amen.

My name is Judy Schall and for 34 years I was teaching in the classroom.

I taught everything from first grade through tenth grade.

And a year ago I quit being in the classroom.

I was principal at the Greater Lansing Adventist School.

And the December before, my husband and I started praying about maybe my leaving the classroom to do an independent ministry.

So every sign from God says, yes, do that.

And so for the last year, I have been working independently with Childhoods with Jesus, which is my own independent ministry.

And it's starting to get very busy with talking to people about how do you keep kids close to Jesus.

1 of the things I wanted to look at is safety.

If you're working with children And if it's your church, check with your church to make sure they're doing things that are going to protect the children.

In this day and age, we can't take anything for granted.

And anywhere you're going to put your children, you want to make sure they're safe.

Make sure your church has a safety plan, and make sure you know what it is, because these children in our care are in our care, and we want to protect them.

Also, anywhere you're working, and again, if you're taking your children to church, find out from your church, do they have a set of qualifications for somebody working with the children?

Again, that's really important, that's why I'm going over that.

I just got done doing, We did our VBS already 2 weeks ago, woo-hoo!

And it was much cooler in our non-air-conditioned gym.

And I couldn't get up front in the church and just say, who would like to help?

I could for cutting out things, for doing some shopping, for fixing food, but I could not do that for who would come and work with the children because we don't know everybody's background.

So if they're going to work with your children at your church, you have to have a background check.

And if you don't know how to do that, just call the conference office, talk to the human resources department.

Probably Annette met, and she will get them.

But all, if they're in adventures, or if they're in Pathfinders, or Sabbath School, the people working with them need to go through all of those.

But I just wanted to take a moment to make sure your kids are safe.

Now, also, look at your church and sometimes your daycare.

The infant to adult ratio is 3, those tiny, tiny babies.

If you have toddlers, you need 1 adult to 6 children and I'm not sure, you know that little boy in the middle that I showed you early on, he's a toddler, I think I need a one-to-one ratio with him because I have trouble keeping up.

And preschoolers, those are the 3, 4, five-year-olds, 10:10 children to 1 adult, and then for elementary, unless you're in the classroom, and then they can give you as many as they want.

But for some of the things that you might volunteer for at your church, you're looking, you know, nominating committee, they probably are already done with you, but you really want to have 1 adult for every 12 children you're needing to deal with, and those are just some rules of thumb.

So if we look, and I added 18 months into this 1 because my grandson who's 16 months some of the things that a two-year-old could do he could fall into and I'm looking at that I'm thinking it really is about where are they in their developmental stages.

So I'm going to give you some ages and you have young children go that does not match up with my child at all.

Okay, every child is at a different developmental stage.

It sounds like your four-year-old is coming half a year late.

So hang in there for a little bit longer.

I always thought when they hit 4 they were just little people, a little bit more.

I'm having a great time with the grandchildren and fortunately I get to babysit a lot.

Please, when you look at these numbers, understand you're looking at, it could be 6 months either side of that number.

And not all children are all the same, and they'll develop at different time frames.

But some of the characteristics are really important to keep an eye on.

And let's take a look at this little age range.

And you're going to see that all the way through.

So once you write down move all the time, that applies to all of them.

And I got to be over in the junior tent this morning, junior 2, and tell them a story.

And before the story, those folks, those leaders, they took them outside to do a little activity of matching and making a memory verse.

So they were keeping their juniors moving.

And if you have children at home, you already know they move all the time.

So, for instance, our Cradle Roll Sabbath School in Grand Rapids is the biggest room in the building outside the sanctuary because we need space for those little ones to move around.

But we can always tell when a child hasn't been in cradle roll Sabbath school and they start in kindergarten or primary because cradle roll or beginners, whatever you want to call it, is where they learn how to sit down and listen.

And so children who don't have that experience.

And by the way, encourage children to start going to Sabbath school as soon as possible.

It took me 6 months to convince my older son to bring his little girl to Sabbath school.

She loved it so much that when her baby brother was born, when he was 6 days old, he was at Sabbath school.

And you could see him listening to the songs and just thoroughly enjoying the music, because we do a lot of music at that age.

So encourage people to bring their children to Sabbath school.

It's a wonderful place, and hopefully your Sabbath school gives them some room to roam and some activity.

I also want to add to them, at this stage their big muscles are beginning to develop, but their smaller muscles aren't.

In other words, they're clumsy and klutzy and fall down a lot.

And I have this 16-month-old grandson, and he can't walk a straight line to save his life.

And we finally decided he always has to be going, where am I going to go next?

And he just staggers and swaggers, and We were kind of worried until he figured out what was on his mind.

That's because he's looking everywhere for the next spot he wants to go.

And children are different in the family.

If you've got more than 1, you know that.

So maybe you have a good 1 who behaves themselves that you're dealing with as a parent, and the next 1 comes along and they're totally different, and that's normal.

But it doesn't really prepare you for that second 1.

Are you finding that out with your own children?

Our granddaughter didn't climb on anything.

You have to watch very carefully because he'll be at the top of something without any kind of warning.

My grandson, there's some silly songs like B-I-N-G-O.

When I would have him and try to get him to sleep, I went through all the songs I could think of, and he loved that 1.

And so, 1 day at home, the little girl singing V-I-N-G-O, and her parents are going, where did you learn that?

So as you're working with them and helping them, help them with, he would go to sleep when I'd sing to him.

And now I'll sing to him, not in public, but to him.

And his mom was saying, how do you get him to sleep so fast?

Tomorrow, my seminar, we're gonna talk a lot more about that.

But he knows that when I pick him up, take his shoes off, wrap him in a blanket and start to sing and rock him, that his choices have ended.

He's going to have to go to sleep, which he usually does.

Every Day with Jesus

Dear Jesus, we thank you so much for a new day.

We thank you for the cooler weather and a chance to be together with fellow believers.

Please be with us now as we learn more about how to help your children as they grow and mature in your name.

I have a personal mission and that is I'm out of the classroom and I have Childhoods with Jesus which is an independent ministry and my goal is for every day for our boys and girls to know Jesus no matter what happens every day.

Well, if you're worried about your child, does your child forget to wash their hands before they eat or after going to the restroom?

Does your child forget where they put commonly needed clothing, such as shoes and coats?

Is your child unable to recognize items they need even when they're right in front of them like a piano book or a lunch container?

Do you have trouble getting your child to practice their music or clean up their room?

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you have a very normal child.

There are still many things that parents can do to improve their life with their normal children, And we're going to look at some ways that we can make a few changes that will make a big difference.

In the book Education, the spirit of prophecy tells us, The greatest want of the world is the want of men.

Men who in their inmost souls are true and honest.

Men who do not fear to call sin by its right name.

Men whose conscience is true to the duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.

But such a character is not the result of accident.

It is not due to special favors or endowments of providence.

A noble character is the result of self-discipline, of the subjection of the lower to the higher nature, the surrender of self for the service of love to God and man.

The youth need to be impressed with the truth that their endowments are not their own.

Strength, time, intellect are but lent treasures.

They belong to God and it should be the resolve of every youth to put them to the highest youth." And that's found in Education, page 57.

I think that is just a very powerful message that we've been given.

But I think right there, that tells us kind of where we laid the groundwork, both as teachers and parents and leaders of children.

They're a little different from what you're used to.

Series

Education

Board, but Not Bored

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Stealing Lucifer’s Playground

Stealing Lucifer’s Playground - Part 2

1h 18m

Seminars

How to Preach and Speak with Power

1h 42m

Plenary Sessions

Panel: Education and Character Development

45m

Amazing Disciples

5. As a Witness

31m

Does Adventist Education Make A Difference: Retention Data

Does Adventist Education Make A Difference: Retention Data - Part 3

1h 1m

Breakout Session 3

Cover Crops, Smother Crops, and Green Manures

1h

Institutional Farming

Tips for Finding Success with a Ministry Farm

52m

Spirit of Prophecy or Spiritual Exercises?

43m

Seminars

Reflections from a Product of the System

1h 11m

Breakout Session B

Building a Blood-Pressure-Lowering Environment

1h 1m

Breakout Session C

What’s Lifestyle Got to Do With Your Eyes?

45m

Facebook Marketing

Facebook Marketing - Part 5: Facebook Marketing Q & A

1h 4m

Sound Doctrine