OSBA encourages local boards to engage their communities to meet challenges and embrace changing cultures -- all for the sake of improving public education . . . for doing what’s best for all children.

It’s time to follow our own advice. I’m glad to report we started in full force at the first Governance Review Committee meeting Oct. 20-21. This new 17-member group quickly agreed its overall goal is to unite our members into an association where every voice is heard and counted.

For example, with recent efforts to encourage vote-by-mail in our own elections, we understand what some members are saying: We must encourage equal involvement and representation, regardless of how big or small we are, whether we drive through city traffic jams, farmland or snowy passes.

The OSBA is organized like one giant district with 1,400 members under one centrally elected board. Is that the best structure, given our size and diversity? How do we get members more involved regionally? Should we create forums where each region elects its own member of the OSBA board? Should we have delegate assemblies? How should we address district size? Should we continue electing directors from the five Congressional Districts, even though population has shifted dramatically since districts were created? How can one voice in Baker be heard as clearly as one from Salem or Portland?

While the faces and priorities we serve have paraded by with each passing election, our basic structure hasn’t changed since we began 60 years ago. We could ask, “Why change?” After all, 60 years ago OSBA was created to unite Oregon school districts to lobby the Legislature for a fair, stable funding system for schools. That hasn’t changed!

But some things must change. When OSBA began in 1946, Oregon had about 1.5 million citizens. Today we have over 3.6 million. Sixty years ago, OSBA’s budget was about $12,000 -- today, it’s $4.8 million. And when it comes to demographics, for example, our Hispanic population has increased over 500 percent in recent years.

The new governance committee created a long list of issues to tackle, with the goal of submitting recommendations to the OSBA board in September and at the OSBA annual meeting in November 2007.

Our four major areas include board elections, the nominations process, our annual business meeting and resolutions process. Specifically, we’ll look at:

• Our elections and representation structure: term limits, length of term, how to regionalize OSBA board positions.
• Nominations process for vacant board positions.
• Officer positions: number of positions, progression through officer ranks.
• Voting process and forums: How do we implement vote-by-mail if members pass these resolutions at our annual meeting? What about one vote per board vs. one vote per member?
• Getting member input on the resolutions process.
• Conducting the annual business meeting.
• Use of technology in governance (virtual meetings and member communication)
• Exploring the role of regional school board associations.
• The nature of OSBA: are we an association of local boards, or an association of individual board members?
• How we appoint committees: Executive Committee, Nominations Committee, Legislative Policy Committee, Insurance Trusts, and Resolutions Committee.

I invite your feedback on these topics. Our next meeting is Nov. 17-18 in Salem, but we hope to host meetings in other locations. We’ve created a Web section, 2006-07 Governance Review, where we’ll post research, topics, meeting minutes, discussions and progress. We’ll also explore using our regional meeting format to get members involved.