Ever wondered about the driving forces shaping the education your children receive? Join us as Sherri Story, the fervent chairman and executive director of the School Board Member Alliance of Virginia, takes us behind the curtain of school board operations. Our riveting conversation navigates the terrain of student safety, academic success, and the underestimated power wielded by school boards. As we follow Sherri's transition from classroom teacher to a trailblazer in conservative education advocacy, we uncover the pressing need for diverse training among school board members, particularly in the aftermath of COVID-19's impact on our education systems.
School board members are the unsung heroes in the quest for high-quality public schooling, yet they often enter the battlefield without the full armor of knowledge regarding their roles. We address the headwinds of resistance they face from superintendents and legal challenges, and how the School Board Member Alliance is championing the cause for enhanced oversight and accountability within Virginia's schools.
For those impassioned to make a difference in education, this episode is a treasure trove of insights. We equip potential school board candidates with the tools and mindset needed to embark on this significant journey. For our audience beyond Virginia's borders, we pave the way to connect with organizations sharing the same fervor for academic excellence and teacher empowerment. Amidst our exploration of education advocacy, we also reveal how to subtly champion conservative principles through merchandise that resonates with common-sense values in education, fostering a community of support in the process.
TCC is THE podcast for conservative teachers, parents, and patriots who believe in free speech, traditional values, and education without indoctrination.
The views and opinions expressed by me are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any employer, school, or school district I have worked with in the past or present.
Thanks for listening to The Conservative Classroom. Teaching the truth. Preserving our values.
Ever wondered about the driving forces shaping the education your children receive? Join us as Sherri Story, the fervent chairman and executive director of the School Board Member Alliance of Virginia, takes us behind the curtain of school board operations. Our riveting conversation navigates the terrain of student safety, academic success, and the underestimated power wielded by school boards. As we follow Sherri's transition from classroom teacher to a trailblazer in conservative education advocacy, we uncover the pressing need for diverse training among school board members, particularly in the aftermath of COVID-19's impact on our education systems.
School board members are the unsung heroes in the quest for high-quality public schooling, yet they often enter the battlefield without the full armor of knowledge regarding their roles. We address the headwinds of resistance they face from superintendents and legal challenges, and how the School Board Member Alliance is championing the cause for enhanced oversight and accountability within Virginia's schools.
For those impassioned to make a difference in education, this episode is a treasure trove of insights. We equip potential school board candidates with the tools and mindset needed to embark on this significant journey. For our audience beyond Virginia's borders, we pave the way to connect with organizations sharing the same fervor for academic excellence and teacher empowerment. Amidst our exploration of education advocacy, we also reveal how to subtly champion conservative principles through merchandise that resonates with common-sense values in education, fostering a community of support in the process.
TCC is THE podcast for conservative teachers, parents, and patriots who believe in free speech, traditional values, and education without indoctrination.
The views and opinions expressed by me are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any employer, school, or school district I have worked with in the past or present.
Thanks for listening to The Conservative Classroom. Teaching the truth. Preserving our values.
Have you ever considered the impact of school board decisions on student safety and academic success? What are some of the unique challenges that school boards face today and what is a school board member alliance? Welcome to The Conservative Classroom, where we're teaching the truth and preserving our values. I'm your host, Mr. Webb, and I'm glad you're here. This podcast is a haven for conservative educators, parents and patriots like you, who believe in the importance of free speech, traditional values and education without indoctrination.
Mr. Webb:
Each week, we dive into issues that are plaguing our education system and keeping you up at night. In each episode, we offer common sense ideas to improve education in our classrooms and communities. You may feel like you're the last conservative educator or parent, but I want you to know that you are not alone. By the way, if you like what you hear today, please share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. Together, we can teach the truth and preserve our values. In today's episode, we welcome a former educator and school board member who started a conservative school board association or school board member alliance. Now let's get started. I'm excited to welcome a special guest to the conservative classroom Sherri Story. Sherri is chairman and executive director of the School Board Member Alliance of Virginia. She is herself a former school board member and advocate for excellence in education. Sherry, thank you for joining us.
Sherri Story:
Thank you so much, Joey. I really appreciate this time and ability to communicate with all your podcast listeners.
Mr. Webb:
Yeah, thank you so much. Ted Lamb, a mutual friend of ours, suggested that I have you on the podcast, so anyone that Ted suggests is okay in my book.
Sherri Story:
Oh, that's great. Well, ted and I are good friends and I really appreciate him connecting us.
Mr. Webb:
Sherry, can you tell us a little about yourself, your background? What led you to starting the School Board Member Alliance?
Sherri Story:
Yes, I was a public school teacher for 20 years, or about 22 actually. My first 10 years were in Wisconsin and then took time off, did some raising children and family, did some raising children and family, and then came back and spent another 12 years in Suffolk, virginia, as a biology teacher. And then I decided to. I was frustrated with the lack of funding to classrooms and I decided the only way I might be able to figure this out was to run for school board, and that's actually what got me started. And then there were other things that I was very curious about as well in terms of the operation of the public school system and the relationship of the board the school board to leadership. So I ran for school board and I won my borough seat and I served four years, and at that time it only made me more hungry to keep digging into this odd relationship really that had developed in the 21st century that I did not see in the 20th century.
Sherri Story:
When I started teaching, I felt I felt things had really changed, and so at the end of the four years I knew I wasn't going to run again, and I was asked by the Family Foundation actually, who I had a relationship with doing some lobby work, lobbying work for them. They approached me and said we think that there needs to be an alternative choice, an alternative or a choice for school board members to receive training, and there's only one in the state of Virginia, which is the Virginia School Board Association. And so they asked me, after my four years, did I think that would be a good idea, rather than having a monopoly of just one source for training? And I said absolutely. I was a very good attender while I was on the school board. I attended all the VSBA training.
Sherri Story:
I could gold medal winner, and I found that there were just a lot of gaps and some things, frankly, I disagreed with. I thought that's really not what the law says, and so I felt that this was a great opportunity. I thought, if it's to be, you know, there will be others that will rally around and think this is a good idea. And so they helped me organize this in December of 2022. And we launched in January of 2023 in Richmond at the Capitol, with a board of directors of 10. And we started our journey of the School Board Member Alliance, our journey of the School.
Mr. Webb:
Board Member Alliance. So that's been going as of this recording a little over a year going on a year and a half.
Sherri Story:
How's it going Year and a half now? Yeah, yes, so we've been. Our first year we had approximately 41 full-time members. We invite candidates to join and so that they can start to get a flavor of what's required of them as school board members and they can join at a different tier while they're candidates and then if they win their seat, then of course they can become full members. And so we had about 41 our first year. We did some successful podcasts of training and some webinars and then we had our first like annual conference. We called it our Empower Ed Sy symposium and it was a day long training and we thought we would be very excited if about 35. So we booked a room for about 40 to 42 and 57 people came.
Mr. Webb:
We were very crowded.
Sherri Story:
But that was pretty exciting as well. We were. We filled that room. So this year we're looking forward to again the first weekend of December to have our second annual conference, and we're up to 70 members, so we've almost doubled our membership for this year, so there was obviously a need for that.
Sherri Story:
I believe there was, and evidently other board members do as well. I think they were seeing the holes some holes that existed I believe there was, and evidently other board members do as well. I think they were seeing the holes some holes that existed and just some traditional kind of things that the Virginia School Board Alliance Association has been in existence for 118 years and I think that they have some sort of now norms of what they say to board members that may not necessarily, you know, match how new school board members coming on board in this timeframe and after COVID see their leadership role as school board members. So I believe that there is a need for people to have a choice. Now. We are an alliance that is for school board members only and they may individually join, but the Virginia School Board Association, it's an association of the entire board. School Board Association, it's a association of the entire board.
Sherri Story:
So if the majority, like when I was on the school board, six out of the seven I wasn't interested in joining the Virginia School Board Association, but my membership was paid for no matter what, because six of the seven wanted to belong and as a result, I was forced to belong, I guess you might say, and I felt that also didn't really match what I felt was, you know, in America we like choices, right?
Sherri Story:
We like choices of where to eat and where to, and there really wasn't a choice in the state of where to get school board training. So I know that there's the state associations across America. Most of them allow superintendents to attend and join and attorneys to attend and join, and we felt that there should be a time for just school board members to be trained in their role, because their role is unique and the law and the Constitution of both states and the US Constitution speaks to the right of school boards to lead and to govern the local school districts and so that all education is local. And I felt that part was missing in, you know, the training I had received over four years, and so we wanted to just focus on federal law, constitutional law, but mostly Virginia law. What were the mandates, what were the directives to the local school board as to how they should govern? And that's what really has driven us now in terms of our training and how we you know how we train and guide and advise school board members in their leadership role.
Mr. Webb:
You mentioned earlier that you noticed gaps and things that you didn't agree with. What were the gaps in training?
Sherri Story:
Well, I believe that the gaps were in laying out. So our training is organized around the law. So we have in Virginia we have eight standards of quality that are the meat of what drives education in Virginia. We have eight standards of quality that are the meat of what drives education in Virginia, the standards of quality. And in those seven standards the eighth is a compliance component, but the seven standards the local school board has mentioned over 102 times of what they are to be doing, what they are to be either directly doing or overseeing that it's being done.
Sherri Story:
Now, while I attended the VSBA, I never heard the standards of quality referred to at all, and that is while you know. While I was there I can only speak for my attendance at everything but I never heard them speak about the standards of quality, like what were in them and what should we be doing. Another session I never had the opportunity to attend I'd never saw it offered was we have a law that is specifically says the 10 powers and duties of school boards. I had never read that, I never knew about it, and so those were the gaps and I said you know, I think governance would be better, student achievement teachers happier, if school boards understood their, first of all, their power, which is they are the governing agent and no one else. Everyone else is under them.
Sherri Story:
In Virginia, they are the employer of the entire district.
Sherri Story:
They are responsible for everything about the school system, and so I don't feel that that's a well-known fact from law, and I believe that if the school board understood that they were to take the lead and then they were to, you know, really hire good administrators, managers and leaders under them, they still must oversee what is happening and oversee that these parts of the law that end up being assigned.
Sherri Story:
I'll give you an example that they're actually being done, and I think that it has become and this is nationwide that pretty much the superintendent runs the district and and it's become a problem because that's not how the setup is the superintendent is is not the final authority in the district really on anything, it's the school board, and that the roles have been confused. And so we believe that school boards can make their own decision. Once we present and we read the law to them and say here's what you're responsible for, have you done it? And school board members are quite surprised. They're like we had no idea, we've never heard of this. So that's what we're bringing to the table, and I believe that governance will start to happen in a much more accountable and transparent way if school boards take the mandates from their state laws seriously and act as if they believe they have that role right and actually govern with that kind of oversight.
Mr. Webb:
The seven standards of quality and the 10 powers and duties of school board members or school boards. That seems like a pretty broad, big gap. That seems like something very important that school board members should know, and you're saying that the association didn't teach that.
Sherri Story:
Well, not that I ever. I never had that training directly that I knew what those laws said. Not in my experience. And I feel that you know. We had directors, school board members who former school board members, current ones are on our board and they agree they had gone to training many years and had never heard those. Now they're in some of their documents. I have found the powers and duties in a few of their documents 10, the powers and duties in a few of their documents. But you know, when you go to training I think this should be the first thing that you get a good understanding in. Mainly, what we were driven to hear is that school boards have three basic functions. Is that school boards have three basic functions To hire the superintendent, to evaluate the superintendent and to pass his budget and then, if you're a good school board member, you support everything he does after that. So that to me led to a lot of just rubber stamping anything that was brought to the table.
Mr. Webb:
That's what it sounds like. It sounds like that's what they told you your job was, in a way.
Sherri Story:
That's right. That's right and that is what I disagreed with. Of course, there were a lot of accusations that I didn't trust the superintendent. It's not a lot of accusations that I didn't trust the superintendent. It's not a matter of trust. It's people elect school board members to understand what they are being asked by leadership at times to pass, including the budget. You should understand the budget, maybe not entirely your first year.
Sherri Story:
It's a daunting task understanding school budgets, especially ones that get into the billions of dollars, but there are just many things that should not be rubber stamped. And that's not the only duties. The duties of a school board go far beyond hiring the superintendent, doing his evaluation and then passing his budget. I mean there are many more things going on in our school districts. We have superintendents who absolutely don't want to let any school board members inside the schools and we have to fight constantly to get access to the schools when the law provides for access to the school Power duty number two says that any school board the school board has the ability to enter and to oversee anything that's going on in the school, absolutely. And yet, because that's never been actually spoken of and trained, they still fight. We have a district right now that is absolutely fighting to keep school board members out of the schools. Now how crazy does that sound?
Sherri Story:
Well, it sounds like a red flag is what that sounds like.
Sherri Story:
Yeah right, and unfortunately, a lot of times they get the power and the help of school board attorneys. That has been another issue that has come up in our journey here pretty quickly, and so we have our own attorneys on standby on retainer, and often we have asked them to write quite a few opinions based on the laws to try to counteract some of the advice that school boards seem to be getting when it comes to their powers and duties. There has been this norm of one voice only guiding school board members into a corner that says you only have these three duties and if you do anything else outside of that, you're not being a good school board member, literally. And school board members who belong with us, they're being threatened, they are being stalked. A lot of crazy stuff is going on, called bullying and called all sorts of names, and you know, just because they're starting to ask questions, they're starting to exercise their powers and duties and duties of oversight.
Sherri Story:
If a superintendent says, yes, we are complying with standard six, then every school board member should ask just for some evidence of that. We totally believe you and we're so glad to hear you are doing it. Believe you and we're so glad to hear you are doing it and please provide evidence to us so that when our chair has to sign off every year that all of these standards have been complied with, we can do that with a smile on our face, with confidence and insurance and great integrity that all these things have been done. And that is receiving extreme backlash, that we are the phrase that many if there's any school board members out there listening, they might hear phrases like you are interfering with the day-to-day operations of the superintendent if you ask questions or ask for evidence that something's being done, and yet that's the very mandate of the law.
Mr. Webb:
I'm looking at the SBMA website right now. Can you tell me a little about the mission, the mission statement?
Sherri Story:
Yeah, our mission. We want governance to be open, to be transparent, so that the public can see that school districts are doing the best they can to educate students with the highest quality of education possible. And you know, that is something that we're struggling with in the United States right now, and some states more than others. We believe that good governance happens when it's collaborative with parents. We very much disagree that parents are terrorists or parents are evil in some way. We believe that cooperation with parents is good. We believe that we want the public schools to be the absolute best they can be, because the public schools will, you know, most likely for my time frame of life, be where the most students are enrolled. Yet we do believe in choice for parents. Yet we do believe in choice for parents. We believe that choice is a good thing. It's not a threat to public schools, but it will enhance public schools. And yet we are a school board alliance for public schools.
Sherri Story:
School board members, many of us have taught in public schools, so we're not anti-public schools, but we do believe in school choice. We believe in merit based education. We believe that to give grades based on everyone being equitable and trying to receive the same grades is not helping anybody. Rather, equal opportunity, equitable opportunity we're all about that, but we would like to see merit-based learning. As a teacher, I felt that students had to be given every opportunity to earn a grade and their grade reflected their effort, their work, their ability. And many students had to put in extra time and extra work to earn, you know, a grade, maybe of someone else next door, but if they were willing to do it, they always ended up benefiting from it. So those are some of the you know qualities of education and how we see it being met out.
Sherri Story:
We support that kind of governance. We do not. We believe there are many, many, many good quality materials out there, but we certainly don't. We don't support, we don't align with pornography, pornographic materials. That belongs in a different area and not in the school system. And so those are the kind of values that we have.
Sherri Story:
Some people say, oh, you're just right-wing conservatives. Well, conservative doesn't have to be a bad word and it doesn't have to be a partisan word. If our value systems have that label, that's fine. But these are just things of philosophy, of education that we think are good qualities and we love that Virginia has gone back to in their literacy program, the science of reading. We love that Virginia has gone back to in their literacy program the science of reading. We support that 100%. We think that will help bring so many more students back into reading and grade level and we hope that you know all students can be met because we believe all students can be taught to read and given the chance and the support and we're all for it in any way that we can help these kids.
Mr. Webb:
There are, you know, liberals and conservatives. There's, there are extremes on each end of the spectrum and what it sounds like to me. Just like you said, you guys are trying to stick to the law and trying to talk, talk about some of these standards and some of the things that the association should be teaching. So it's not really that conservative to want to teach the things that the board members should be learning anyway, Right, and the things that you mentioned with the students. There's nothing there to me that's a red flag, that, oh, this is a right wing conservative group. I mean, it doesn't sound like that at all.
Sherri Story:
Well, I don't think we are. I think we have led many trainings and people have come to check us out and really right now our trainings are really focused on the law, are really focused on the law. We are trying to teach and make aware, make school boards aware of what's in the law and what their responsibility is, because they're asked to sign off on it annually. And, for instance, one of the things that says you will have updated policies Every five years. All policies are to be updated. So if you do that on a rotational basis, you know every five years, every year, you're taking something that was, you know, five or six years ago. You're making sure that it still applies. You're making sure that you haven't passed a policy that conflicts with it. You know you can get on a rotational basis, but we have school districts that have policies that haven't been updated since 1998, since 2002. And many things have changed since then. Many laws have been passed that those policies might in effect be against new, current laws and they haven't been updated. And yet every year they are signing off the superintendents and the school and the chair. I don't think they even realize, but it's published on our Virginia Department of Education site they sign off that they have completely complied with every mandate in the standard of quality. Well, you know, just a quick, easy check shows that they haven't complied and I don't know why. But I'm not into blame, I'm not into you know, that's not our purpose. Our purpose is to, if you make people aware and I think our standards of quality in Virginia are excellent If you make people and I think our standards of quality in Virginia are excellent if you make people school boards, aware of what they should be looking at and what they should be doing based on the law, I think it doesn't matter where you stand politically, you want to follow the law and these things are good for kids. I mean these standards of quality are excellent. I mean these standards of quality are excellent.
Sherri Story:
I think that if school boards could govern by being compliant with these 7-8 standards, I mean that alone could help schools and student achievement go up, and we're also very focused on student achievement and we're also very focused on student achievement. It has to be the primary, like sort of the featured moment. You know, how are we doing in this area of student achievement? How did the kids do on the midterm? We have a reading diagnostic test that's given in Virginia three times a year. Student achievement, student achievement, student achievement and then, yeah, you'll find that on the agenda of most school boards. Unfortunately, student achievement is never even mentioned, never checked upon, until one time at the very end of the year, superintendent gives a PowerPoint and so that focus is out of whack. Now, this is my personal opinion when I said that, but I think my board would agree with me that we're starting to lead training on how do you put together an agenda that focuses on student achievement so that you're observing the good things that are happening and you don't let kids get way behind, and you hear from your great leaders in the school what they're doing to catch these kids up midterm you know mid-year, not waiting to the very end.
Sherri Story:
You know, is the curriculum working? We have over five or six different laws that tell school boards they're to be overseeing curriculum. Is it working or isn't it? And you know that again we're accused of, you know there's accusations of we're interfering with the day-to-day operations of the school board. We don't have to show you our curriculums. Well, of course you do, and fortunately it's in our law that you do, and you know every state has similar laws. I am not up to date on you know every other state, but I think there are similar laws in every state that if school board members looked, they would find great support there for just doing a better job as a school board member. They are the overseeing body. All education is local and school board members you know they're very, very important.
Mr. Webb:
They're very, very important and while I'm thinking of it, because I don't know a lot about school boards and what goes on behind the scenes so there's training when you're first elected and I'm guessing there's some sort of ongoing professional development.
Sherri Story:
Yes, that's one of our standards of learning. Yes, that's one of our standards of learning. Number five school boards are to annually be trained with high quality training. And then the law lists five minimum areas Now there's actually six because they just passed a new law so they have to be trained and get annual training in six areas and six topics and those should be kept on record. So if anyone checked and says, have you completed your annual training and in these areas you know, school boards or school clerks should be able to say, yes, here's the record, here's. You know, if you go to a conference, you need to keep track of the topics you're doing and make sure that annually you have those covered. And the law says it's the minimum.
Sherri Story:
So right now, there was an article in the paper in the Richmond Times this morning. As a matter of fact, it turned out that in our capital, in Richmond, public Schools their schools are struggling and there was an MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding, last year given to the district. In that Memorandum of Understanding there was some mandated training for their school board members and as of that was given in 2022, and as of that was given in 2022 and as of March 2023, the school board has not complied, and so I'm not sure why the resistance to training. Looked at the topics and understood their role, they would see the necessity for updated training all the time to know how to evaluate curriculum.
Sherri Story:
In our law it says school board is to evaluate curriculum and instruction. Well, you know, not every person coming on a school board is from the background of education, so they need training. How do I evaluate our curriculum and our instruction going on? But you know, that's very foreign to someone who has never read that law. In fact, they will all they might. If you don't tell them it's in the law, though, and you just speak it, they will almost tell you that you're not telling the truth. But I am telling the truth and it is in there. So then I think they would see the need for training when they realized the great role and responsibility they have to oversee the education of our children in each local level.
Mr. Webb:
So for any, let's say, school board members in Virginia that are just now finding out about your organization, maybe they missed the initial training. Can they get their professional development training from SBMA, and do you guys offer online training as well?
Sherri Story:
Yeah, we offer webinar training. We have a wonderful newsletter that goes out. Anyone listening can become a friend of SBMA. We offer a level of friendship and you can get our newsletter, which is, you know, just based on the lots of laws for you and conflict of interest and all sorts of good stuff and how that applies to school boards, and you can then go. You know, that's something that teachers too can be aware of. Is is my school board, you know, following the law and maybe I wonder if we have something comparable in our law so you can join as a friend.
Sherri Story:
Now we offer training all year round. We just had two regional trainings. We're going to have some more training during the summer. They can come to. Then they're going to have a symposium. We offer training online.
Sherri Story:
One of the things is current events School board members are to be trained in and we just had a great training on human trafficking out of our schools and a parent whose daughter was trafficked out of a high school here in Virginia and now we're going to offer a model policy.
Sherri Story:
What kind of policies and practices could schools put in place to keep kids from being trafficked out of high schools? And so we hope to offer that model policy. We're helping, we're helping, we offer a service for making sure that there are measurables in school board strategic plan so that you can actually tell if you're improving or not, and it's very focused on student achievement. So we it's not a one time and done, we offer constant training and they can join at any time and hop on the. You know, hop on, learn how to govern lawfully and legally. You know we all take an oath to the Commonwealth of Virginia here that we will follow the laws of Virginia and I hope that we are, you know. I hope we are the alliance, I hope we are a vehicle that can help bring school boards to become active participants and overseers of what's going on in our school districts and I believe ultimately that is going to really help students and student learning.
Mr. Webb:
And to switch gears a little bit for anyone listening, say a parent who's thinking about, they've heard our conversation and they think you know what, maybe I should look into running for school board. What? What advice would you have? Would you recommend it? Do you think we need good common sense school board members? Common sense?
Sherri Story:
school board members. Absolutely, absolutely. We need common sense. I mean, I think you know that's what should drive common sense kind of decision making, and these days I suppose everyone has a different subjective version of that. But I do think parents should be involved and especially to come on to school boards and hopefully they.
Sherri Story:
These days it takes time. There is a certain amount of time required, unless you're going to be someone that I'll get on. You know I don't have to do much. I can just sort of whatever brings to the table, stamp it. But if you really want to have a fun time of digging in and seeing of what a great amount of effort could make a huge difference, but it is an effort. It is an effort to I guess you have to have a passion. I want to make schools better, not only for my children but everybody, and we can do better and we are huge advocates for teachers.
Sherri Story:
Teacher burnout. We just led a preliminary strategic plan conference with a board looking to maybe use some of our services and they had a survey that was taken. They didn't even realize that the burnout rate of the teachers who took the survey it was 100%, 100%. Have to become advocates for taking things off teachers' plates and overseeing that things are happening more efficiently and doing what they can to support teachers. They have to be the friends of teachers and they have to have an ear, to be wanting to sit down with their teaching staff and hear from them directly. How can we help you?
Sherri Story:
And too often again, there are barriers. Too often there are administrators that don't want school board members to talk directly to their employees, and we believe that's wrong. We want to have school boards that listen to teachers directly, to meet with them directly, to hear from them and then to govern and implement what changes are needed to support teachers. We need our teachers desperately. We need good teachers in public schools and we need to retain those good teachers we have. That's why I think parents should get on, because they know public schools are filled with good teachers but they're losing them and you know parents can make a difference by running for the school board and then really digging in and working.
Mr. Webb:
Now I'm going to ask you a very tough question what's the one thing you want the listener to remember, if they don't remember anything else about this episode?
Sherri Story:
I want them to pay attention to what school boards are doing and especially what they're not doing. I want them to know that school boards have an oversight over every part of the district. And if their school board meetings are not focused on student achievement and they're focused on all sorts of other things If they're being entertained by the choirs and this and that you know, and all these kids are being brought in to sing, but when is the school board talking about student achievement all year long? School board is not focused on monitoring student achievement, then it's not going to improve it. Just it can't improve without the school board being focused and paying attention to all kids, even those gap kids. Everyone deserves to have a good education in the public schools. So pay attention to what your school board is focused on in meetings and what they're monitoring, and I think that that will help school boards do a better job.
Mr. Webb:
That is some great information. And if someone's not in Virginia, how can they find out if there is an alternative such as you guys created with the SBMA in their state?
Sherri Story:
Yeah, well, if you come to our website, it is my M-Y S-B-M-A School Board Member Alliance, mysbm a. org, and you can email us there and we will let you know. Dot org, and you can email us there and we will let you know. We are in contact with a lot of other organizations that are now starting up and we will let you know and we will give you a contact information in your state. So just email us from the site, contact us, and we'll gladly refer you. We do that. You know a lot for people once they find us and we can refer to where there is something like us starting up in their state.
Mr. Webb:
And I will make sure and put a link to mysbma. org in the show notes to make it easy for folks that are listening. They can just go straight to the show notes. Click the link, Although mysbma. org is pretty easy to remember.
Sherri Story:
It is. It sort of has a sort of nice ring to it, doesn't it?
Mr. Webb:
I'll try to put the link to the email in there as well, and, as we wrap things up, one of the questions I was going to ask is for you to share the website address. I think we've done that a couple of times already, but can you share how they can find out more information about SBMA, maybe how they can connect with you on social media?
Sherri Story:
Yes, we do have a Facebook site, just SBMA of Virginia, and so Facebook is there and you can connect with us there. The email is sstory at mysbmaorg and I'd gladly communicate with anybody of how to connect and support us. And, you know, just by getting our newsletter it can give ideas Not every state has a startup and it might lead to something.
Mr. Webb:
All right, sounds great. I'll put links to everything in the show notes and thank you so much for joining us today, sherry. It's been a pleasure having you on the conservative classroom and I know our listeners will appreciate your insights on the school board and the workings of the school board and the alternative to learning that you guys have created.
Sherri Story:
Great, and if there's any school board topic you'd like to have me back to talk about specifically that maybe your constituents end up you know are your listeners. Sorry, I'm used to talking about constituents your listeners would like, just let me know and I'd gladly come back and share any information I can on specific. You know the behind-the-scenes stuff. I love to talk on the Freedom of Information Act and how parents can connect with their school districts by using FOIA or their sunshine law, so maybe we can have that discussion sometime.
Mr. Webb:
That sounds good. Thanks, so much Okay.
Sherri Story:
Thank you.
Mr. Webb:
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