BSVDWatch.org

We hope we don't come across as a one trick pony, not having additional stories or comments about the BVSD community beside the ongoing BHS & CWA issue. The end of the school year keeps all of us involved with BVSDWatch.org pretty distracted. However, we do have a few things in the works, and we'll have additional posts in the near future.

Here are a few notes on some of the things we have been thinking about. If you have any comments on these items, please drop us a line:

    • Once we have the technical bugs worked out, we hope to have video files of BVSD board meetings available on our website (from the link above) reliably a day or two after the meeting. The ones from May 22nd are up now, and we appologize for the delay. They are not always as exciting as what we have  experienced lately, but still worth checking out.

    •  We would like to see BVSD seriously consider hiring an Ombudsperson (Ombudsman). What is an Ombudsperson? From the Austin Independent School District website: "The District Ombudsman serves as an independent, confidential resource to assist AISD parents and community members in resolving problems, complaints, conflicts, and other school-related issues when normal procedures have failed." Sometimes the chain of command for filing a complaint through a school district does not meet everyone's needs. We believe an Ombudsperson could help. We'll go into more detail soon, but for now, here are a few other school district websites that have Ombudspersons on staff and explains how they help make their district a better place for their employees and community.

        - Austin Independent School District, Austin, Texas.

        - Kent School District, Kent, Washington.

        - Poway Unified School District, Poway, California.

    •  Stronger IT oversight. Other school districts have an IT oversight committee, not BVSD. We want to be sure we don't have the tail wagging the dog. 

    • Don't forget there are four school board seats open in the fall. If you are considering running let us know and we will post your info and statement on our website. We will also be interviewing all school board candidates and will have a questionaire for each to answer that we will post online for the community to read. Let us know the issues that are important to you and we will consider adding them to our questionaire.

    • Zero tolerance policies are a hot issue for many in the community. We'll be talking to community members on that issue and reporting back in more detail soon.

We hope everyone has a great summer vacation and check back frequently, tell your freinds about us and send us your BVSD stories (good, bad, or ugly).