CHANGING RESPONSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The Richland Board of Education has four goals the members established for themselves. One goal is to have all of the board members keep informed on all local, state, and national educational developments of significance; and another goal is to engage with the staff and public to help build trust through meaningful relationships. In an effort to work on these two goals, the Board read Jamie Vollmer’s book Schools Cannot Do It Alone. They held two meetings to discuss the book, and to determine if it can be used to help the Board implement some changes in the district.

The Board reflected on the past in hopes it would help with decisions for the future. In the 1800’s the responsibilities of teachers were simply to teach reading, writing, basic math and good citizenship. The Board was shocked to learn how those simple tasks have morphed into an enormous amount of duties. Mr. Vollmer lists how the responsibilities shifted beginning with the early 1900’s to include nutrition, immunization and health. He continues to expand the list by each decade as new duties were added. For example by 1960 eighteen new responsibilities were added, some of which included school bus transportation, business education, speech/drama, expanded science and math and safety education. Through the 1970’s other topics were added many of which dealt with family-related issues, such as drug and alcohol abuse education, parenting education, character education and school breakfast. During the 1980’s and 1990’s nearly forty more responsibilities were added to the duties of public education. Some examples are keyboarding, teen pregnancy awareness, after-school programs for working parents, child abuse monitoring, HIV/AIDS education, distance learning, post-secondary options, homeless education, service learning and safety training for bicycles, guns and water. During the 2000’s at least thirteen more duties were added as well as more standardized testing, more reports and more parental notification requirements.

The point of acknowledging this list of duties is to help everyone understand the job of public schools has greatly expanded beyond simple reading, writing and arithmetic. The Board plans to focus on preparing the children of the district for an unknown future filled with all sorts of unknown technology, yet continuing to manage many of these current requirements. They do not have all of the answers right now, but plan to continue working on education for the future.

If you have questions, please call the office at 647-6106 or check the district website at www.richland.k12.wi.us.