New Tahoma School Board representative for 3rd District

[Ric Lewis]

Hey folks, my name is Ric Lewis and I was appointed to serve on the Tahoma School Board from District 3 this evening. I'll be sworn in this Friday (Jan 5th) at the CSC in a special board meeting at 3pm (https://www.facebook.com/events/223151447511323)

 

Because there wasn't an election here, there wasn't as much chance to connect with the community, so I'm going to try to make up for lost time. I'll be posting this on a couple of community sites.

 

I wanted to share here a bit about how I view this role, my goals and promises to the community, and bring you along as I ramp up in this role.

 

ROLE OF A BOARD MEMBER

To start off, I want to share my understanding of the role I'm taking on and how I'll try to execute it. A school board has neither the expertise nor the time to run a district. The school board, neither individually nor collectively, has the power to hire, fire or censure any individual employee of the district--except the superintendent. Our one true lever of power is as "the boss" of the superintendent (who in fact does run the school district). So the superintendent reports to the board, and we in turn report to the community.

 

My primary goal as a member of the board will be to ensure that the board, in collaboration with all our various stakeholders, creates a set of clear goals and objective outcomes. And that these goals create an accountability structure that helps our superintendent and our district to continue to thrive.

 

I'm a big believer that structures dictate outcomes, and incorrect incentive structures can cause very odd behavior. When we see failures or counterintuitive outcomes, it is often a sign of an incentive structure that needs to be evaluated. If you ever catch me in person, I'm happy to tell you the story of the nine-dollars for one-dollar-bill auction that explains this point.

 

TRANSPARENCY

I want to start with my promise to the community here. I am open for questions at *any* time.  I will always give you one of three answers:

1. I will answer the question directly, to the best of my knowledge.
2. I will track your question and drive to help find an answer (or try to direct you to the right person).
3. OR I will tell you why I cannot answer your question.

I intend to hold regular (monthly or more) AMA (ask me anything) events on public social media during my term.

One of the first things that was made clear to me this evening is that the rules of school board communication are complex and are bound by state law. For example, I'm told 3 or more board members can't share a group chat because any such discussion must be announced ahead of time and must happen in a public forum. My hope is that we can find ways to create a public forum for discussion that is visible to the whole community (for example a community discord server) to reduce the friction of communication.

These state laws exist to try to ensure transparency and they also exist to prevent the district from being exposed to costly lawsuits. Board members are human and even if we don't say something directly dumb, we want to avoid the risk of even having the appearance of something suit-worthy.

After I'm sworn in I will be bound by the communication requirements laid out by the state. It's going to take me a while to ramp up to have answers to questions and to communicate to the community when I cannot legally discuss a topic. But I'll always tell you what I know and what I can. (I'm also open to discussions on how we could potentially improve state law to ensure transparency and common-sense flow of information in an era of digital and social media).

 

MY EXPERIENCE SO FAR

At the coaxing of some friends, I applied for the open school board position back in December. Around that same time, I learned that my friend and neighbor, Vikki Iverson was also applying for the position. We both agreed that we'd be plenty happy if the other was selected.

 

Vikki and I also shared thoughts about how the interview process, including reviewing questions from previous board appointments (see attached).

 

After filling out my application (also attached below), I was contacted by a member of the administration and given instructions about the upcoming public interview on Jan 3rd.

 

The public interview process was me in the board room at a small desk with the board asking me a series of questions. I wish I'd taken a photo of the questions--I'll see if I can't find them to share later, but they were similar to previous years. Every candidate was asked the same questions. I expected a larger turnout at this meeting and I also expected to field questions from the public. But there were only a handful of people in person and another half-dozen or so online. Not sure if folks weren't interested, or if we need to improve how we're communicating those types of meetings.

 

For tonight, I've got a large binder of reading material in front of me. The board needs to move quickly to select a new superintendent who will start in time to be fully operational by next school year. Right now that is priority #1, and is likely to be the most impactful decision of my short term. The board's current goal is to make this appointment in the month of February. So please pay attention to our public meeting schedule and/or reach out to me if you'd like to participate.

After I'm sworn in tomorrow, I'll be given a district email address, a badge, and a district-managed laptop. This position also comes with a payment of $50/day up to a max of $4800/yr as mandated by state law. Any income I earn from the state during my service on the board will be donated--my current choice is Vine Maple Place, but I'm open to other suggestions.

 

I will hold this position until the next election in Nov 2025. I have no idea right now if I'll intend to run again at that point--one thing at a time.

[Justin B]

Hi Ric,

Thank you for reaching out and congrats on your appointment. I commend your efforts to engage with the community as a whole. That is something the existing board struggles with leading many parents to feel that their concerns constantly fall on deaf ears. I believe your engagement efforts will serve the community well during your tenure.

While our community page is a great way to communicate with the team, it doesn't have the engagement it did when it first dropped (it's just not as convenient as FB). The effort is well received though so thank you. The articles we publish and emails we blast still receive heavy engagement however, so we will be sure to get this information out to our supporters so that they may also view it.

[icleanteeth]

17 hours ago, Ric Lewis said:

Hey folks, my name is Ric Lewis and I was appointed to serve on the Tahoma School Board from District 3 this evening. I'll be sworn in this Friday (Jan 5th) at the CSC in a special board meeting at 3pm (https://www.facebook.com/events/223151447511323)

 

Because there wasn't an election here, there wasn't as much chance to connect with the community, so I'm going to try to make up for lost time. I'll be posting this on a couple of community sites.

 

I wanted to share here a bit about how I view this role, my goals and promises to the community, and bring you along as I ramp up in this role.

 

ROLE OF A BOARD MEMBER

To start off, I want to share my understanding of the role I'm taking on and how I'll try to execute it. A school board has neither the expertise nor the time to run a district. The school board, neither individually nor collectively, has the power to hire, fire or censure any individual employee of the district--except the superintendent. Our one true lever of power is as "the boss" of the superintendent (who in fact does run the school district). So the superintendent reports to the board, and we in turn report to the community.

 

My primary goal as a member of the board will be to ensure that the board, in collaboration with all our various stakeholders, creates a set of clear goals and objective outcomes. And that these goals create an accountability structure that helps our superintendent and our district to continue to thrive.

 

I'm a big believer that structures dictate outcomes, and incorrect incentive structures can cause very odd behavior. When we see failures or counterintuitive outcomes, it is often a sign of an incentive structure that needs to be evaluated. If you ever catch me in person, I'm happy to tell you the story of the nine-dollars for one-dollar-bill auction that explains this point.

 

TRANSPARENCY

I want to start with my promise to the community here. I am open for questions at *any* time.  I will always give you one of three answers:

1. I will answer the question directly, to the best of my knowledge.
2. I will track your question and drive to help find an answer (or try to direct you to the right person).
3. OR I will tell you why I cannot answer your question.

I intend to hold regular (monthly or more) AMA (ask me anything) events on public social media during my term.

One of the first things that was made clear to me this evening is that the rules of school board communication are complex and are bound by state law. For example, I'm told 3 or more board members can't share a group chat because any such discussion must be announced ahead of time and must happen in a public forum. My hope is that we can find ways to create a public forum for discussion that is visible to the whole community (for example a community discord server) to reduce the friction of communication.

These state laws exist to try to ensure transparency and they also exist to prevent the district from being exposed to costly lawsuits. Board members are human and even if we don't say something directly dumb, we want to avoid the risk of even having the appearance of something suit-worthy.

After I'm sworn in I will be bound by the communication requirements laid out by the state. It's going to take me a while to ramp up to have answers to questions and to communicate to the community when I cannot legally discuss a topic. But I'll always tell you what I know and what I can. (I'm also open to discussions on how we could potentially improve state law to ensure transparency and common-sense flow of information in an era of digital and social media).

 

MY EXPERIENCE SO FAR

At the coaxing of some friends, I applied for the open school board position back in December. Around that same time, I learned that my friend and neighbor, Vikki Iverson was also applying for the position. We both agreed that we'd be plenty happy if the other was selected.

 

Vikki and I also shared thoughts about how the interview process, including reviewing questions from previous board appointments (see attached).

 

After filling out my application (also attached below), I was contacted by a member of the administration and given instructions about the upcoming public interview on Jan 3rd.

 

The public interview process was me in the board room at a small desk with the board asking me a series of questions. I wish I'd taken a photo of the questions--I'll see if I can't find them to share later, but they were similar to previous years. Every candidate was asked the same questions. I expected a larger turnout at this meeting and I also expected to field questions from the public. But there were only a handful of people in person and another half-dozen or so online. Not sure if folks weren't interested, or if we need to improve how we're communicating those types of meetings.

 

For tonight, I've got a large binder of reading material in front of me. The board needs to move quickly to select a new superintendent who will start in time to be fully operational by next school year. Right now that is priority #1, and is likely to be the most impactful decision of my short term. The board's current goal is to make this appointment in the month of February. So please pay attention to our public meeting schedule and/or reach out to me if you'd like to participate.

After I'm sworn in tomorrow, I'll be given a district email address, a badge, and a district-managed laptop. This position also comes with a payment of $50/day up to a max of $4800/yr as mandated by state law. Any income I earn from the state during my service on the board will be donated--my current choice is Vine Maple Place, but I'm open to other suggestions.

 

I will hold this position until the next election in Nov 2025. I have no idea right now if I'll intend to run again at that point--one thing at a time.

Ric, thank you for immediate efforts to reach out into the community! Looking forward to having a solid voice on the school board. I wish you the very best!!