BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The Bloomfield Board of Education has recently been recertified by the New Jersey School Board Association.
To become initially certified, a school board is required to attend workshops and retreats which focus on board management. A review of board policy and teacher contracts is also necessary. Eighteen hours of credits are required for certification; 12 are required for recertification.
BOE President Dan Anderson, in a telephone interview, said certification provides training to help streamline board operations. While time consuming, certification is free to all school boards because all NJ school districts are required to be members of the NJSBA, and pay membership fees. According to Anderson, the NJSBA provides guidelines to boards whether they are certified or not, but the certification process, or recertification, provides useful information. The most important information, he said, is learning about who’s in charge.
He said there was a public perception that school boards run the schools. But that is not so, he said. It is the professional administrators who run the schools.
“The board member is to see the school is run well,” he said, “and not run them. That’s the superintendent’s job.”
Anderson said some school boards get involved with micro-management of schools.
“It’s difficult to see the difference between overseeing and jumping in and telling the administrators what to do,” he said. “It’s very easy for any board member to overstep the boundary, with good intentions.”
A board member can suggest something, he said, but there is no encumbrance upon the superintendent to follow the suggestion.
“It has to be understood,” Anderson said, “if you makes a suggestion, you cannot undermine the superintendent. That is when there is a falling out. We’re not having that at all now. That is what the training is about.”
The NJSBA representative for Bloomfield, Charlene Peterson, said for a school board to receive credit for certification, at least seven of nine board members must be present for a training workshop or retreat.
She said a school board may take three years to achieve certification. Credits are good for only three years. So after three years, the first year of credits expire and have to be replaced.
“Certification is a demonstration to the community of your dedication as a board,” Peterson said in a telephone interview.
Anderson acknowledged that being a school board member is a difficult job.
“You have to have the time and understand exactly what you’re there to do,” he said.
But one Bloomfield BOE member finding the time has achieved the status of “master board member.”
Shane Berger achieved this goal several weeks ago and will be recognized by the Essex County School Board Association next month.
To become a master board member, a candidate has to be in their second term as a school board member, and take an additional 20 hours of training in a number of school-related topic, such as finance, security and technology. And they are given a test.
“The test is very hard,” Berger said in a telephone interview. “There are very, very few master board members. A lot is required.”
But being a master board member should help him to be a resource to his colleagues on the Bloomfield board, he said. Berger is also the president of the Essex County School Board Association and on the board of directors of the NJSBA. He is also a member of the finance committee of the latter.
The next step for Berger, if he should take it, would be to become a certified school board leader. This would require 50 credits in addition to having leadership roles in the NJSBA, which he has already achieved.
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