Transformation and Valediction
Parting Words with IASB Executive Director Tom Bertrand
By Theresa Kelly Gegen and Isaac Warren
The Journal sat down with outgoing Executive Director Thomas E. Bertrand, Ph.D., for a conversation about his five years with the Illinois Association of School Boards, a time both “transformational” and “disruptive.” Bertrand, who started at IASB in 2018, is departing the Association this summer and will be the first Executive Director of the Consortium of State School Boards Associations (COSSBA).
No one was expecting what has gone on since 2018, a global pandemic, political unrest, and everything else with enormous stresses to public education. What can you tell us about the Association’s adjustment and adaptation to the past few years?
Tom: Well, certainly it’s felt like a five-year sandwich, with a normal first year and a fairly normal fifth year, and in between kind of a messy sandwich. It’s a convergence of not only the global pandemic, but racial injustice issues, increased political polarization and increased attacks on public education in general, all of which I think led to kind of a collective feeling of frustration, exhaustion, and for many a sense of loss.
In terms of organizations, as I reflected on my time, the two words that come to mind the most are “transformational” and “disruptive,” with the convergence of challenges. For organizations, to adapt and survive meant that a failure to adapt to the world that we were living in could jeopardize an organization’s very existence. I think it was critically important these past five years for organizations, including IASB, to be more nimble and more flexible, to adapt more quickly, and to be responsive to their members. I think that was critically important. I’m really proud of the fact that the Association, as we have emerged from the pandemic, member retention is at 100% and at the highest level of membership in our history. That’s really a tribute to the staff and to the commitment of the staff to serving the membership during an incredibly difficult time. This five-year period has also forced organizations to not only look at how they served their members in new ways, but also to look inward. At IASB, we’ve certainly done that as well over the last five years.
This period that we’ve been living in has magnified the importance of school board service. School boards have been in the spotlight, obviously, with the pandemic and all the other challenges. And I think board service is going to remain in the spotlight for the foreseeable future.
So it’s certainly been an interesting time, a challenging time. But at the same time, organizations had to adapt and that’s not a bad thing. These times have forced organizations, including ours, to adapt more quickly to be responsive to the membership.
And so now looking back, organizations are asking the questions, “What remains and what’s gone forever?”
One IASB example of that would be our new board member training, which used to be exclusively in-person, now is entirely online and has received tremendous response from attendees. There are certain practices that will forever be changed; others that will remain. Organizations also have been challenged to take risks to try to improve services to their members. And that’s what we have been doing, and I expect the Association will continue to do in the future.
How do you think that all of that has impacted, going forward, the principles and priorities of IASB?
Tom: The lasting effects of what we’ve been through will remain. These last five years have impacted student learning and impacted the mental health of our school communities. It’s impacted the workforce as well. So I think that will continue to influence what we do as an organization.
I think also the turnover that occurred in the General Assembly during this past five-year period, the increased focus on schools and public education in particular coming out of the pandemic, is resulting in more mandates and a further erosion of local control, which we should be concerned about collectively. And a lot of these mandates are well-intended, but unfortunately there’s a ready-fire-aim approach that’s often taken with mandates in which we don’t know the impact, we don’t know the cost, we don’t know the practical application of a mandate, but we pass it anyway. Afterward, we’re trying to clean it up through trailer legislation and through feedback from the field. I think that’s a concern as we continue to move forward.
Also, clearly over the last five years, local citizens found their voice. I do think that collectively across our country, there’s a general sense that government at the federal level and the state level may not be working for a lot of our citizens. They don’t feel seen and they don’t feel heard. But at the local level it is their opportunity to feel seen and heard. And so I think from a school board perspective, school boards are going to have to continue to be thoughtful about how we meaningfully engage our school communities in a positive way.
At the outset of your time as executive director, the focus was on the then-recently adopted Evidence-Based Funding formula. That was a main topic of conversation in your predecessor, Roger Eddy’s, outgoing conversation. What is your opinion of how that is playing out?
Tom: Ultimately a budget reflects your values. So, we are fortunate that we’re in a state where the budget does reflect valuing public education; providing students with equity, access, and opportunity; and driving more resources where they need to go to better serve children and their families. We’ve been very successful, I think, as a state in raising the bottom for many of our school districts through the funding formula. We’re not there yet. We’re not on track to fully fund adequacy to all of our schools in a timely manner, or at least in as timely a manner as we would like to see in what was originally intended. But we are on a positive trajectory.
I think some challenges going in going forward involve competing interests. There are certainly competing interests for dollars and the state has been committed to new dollars towards funding the Evidence-Based Funding formula, which has been a good thing. But that will be increasingly challenging as federal funding goes away and competing interests surface as groups compete for dollars. And frankly, mandates cost money. In one hand, you’re getting additional state funding, but in the other hand you’re getting more mandates that are very expensive to implement, so it’s eroding the new dollars that you just got. I think that’s something that will put pressure on the formula going forward.
I think there are also some that would like to further tweak it to make improvements, in their opinion, to the formula. I think the concern with that from my perspective right now is we haven’t fully funded it yet. It’s having success in leveling the playing field across our state and driving these resources where they need to go. But before we tinker with the formula, we need to fully fund it, in my opinion, unless there’s something dramatic that needs to be addressed. And certainly inflation is a concern, that the expenses that districts are incurring locally are eating away at new dollars they receive, just like we are all experiencing at home right now. I think inflation will continue to be a challenge as well as when federal funds, that were sent to schools during the pandemic, go away.
You arrived at IASB with the five Es, Envision Engage, Empower, Evolve, and Educate; then quickly added a sixth, Equity. How have those played out in your time here and how did they guide the association’s work?
Tom: The six Es are our marching orders. They are from the board of directors as to what they value and prioritize for the Association. I’m really proud of the progress that we’ve made, both internally and externally around these six Es and one area in particular: Equity, diversity, inclusion. I am pleased not only with how we’ve served our members in that area, by continuing to look at how we support their work in the field, but also looking inwardly. Our Association staff looks different than it did five years ago. We have much more diversity of experience and of perspectives that we’ve brought to the IASB staff. I’ve said before that in order to serve your members, you have to be the best version of yourself. And so our staff have done a really good job of embracing our own internal work towards equity, diversity, inclusion, and their own professional growth in that area. So that’s something I’m really happy with.
Collectively, and it touches on all six of the Es, we’re more member-focused in our work. We’ve been quicker to adapt in response to our members. We’ve gotten better at using data to illustrate our progress toward each of those six Es, and I’m excited we’ve started this work in developing our member engagement dashboard that will be primarily for internal use and is ultimately about how well are we reaching our members and serving our members. So I’m excited about that.
We have really high levels of satisfaction among members who attend our activities, participate in IASB events, and receive our materials. I’ve talked about member retention being at 100%, which is great and we have really good membership right now, the highest that we’ve ever had.
Our challenge is that we cannot be complacent. And I think the six Es have prevented that from occurring; they keep us moving forward in the fact that we use a scorecard to monitor our progress and keep us moving forward in each of these areas. As I told the staff, whether we like to admit it or not, every organization, every public body, is in the sales business. We are in the sales business as an Association. We have to sell our members on the value of their membership. We have to sell them on the quality of our programs, our services, our events. We have to sell them on the value and importance of advocating for local government governance and local control in decisions that impact our school communities. And we have to sell public education, period, because it’s the cornerstone of our democracy. And I think it’s just critically important that we keep hammering those issues with our membership and with our staff.
That ties into the next question, the overreaching issues, and national public education that you anticipate over the next few years and the challenges as the issues present.
Tom: We’ve seen it these last five years. Some challenges, certainly the culture wars as they’re described, are playing out with public schools right in the spotlight. And I’ve mentioned at some of our Division Meetings, we’ve been here before. These things tend to come in cycles, where the culture wars are played out at the local level, at the school board meetings. We went through that in the 1950s, the ‘60s, the ‘70s, in the ‘80s, and even into the ‘90s. We’re in a period again where we’re dealing with difficult issues that are manifesting themselves at school board meetings. I think the attacks on public education, which really picked up intensity during the pandemic, will continue.
Frankly, you have to go back to who benefits from that, and the reality that there are some people who don’t want to improve and support public education. They want to destroy it. That’s a challenge going ahead, along with academic recovery for a generation of students and the health and wellness of our school communities. Obviously, we’re seeing all of the mental health issues that have manifested during the pandemic and continue. We’ve got demographic shifts in our country and the data bears it out that we are becoming more segregated. We’re becoming more siloed in how we receive information.
There are messages in these challenges for local school boards, in terms of how do you communicate with a changing population and how do you communicate effectively with your constituents so they get accurate information from their schools. The educator shortage -- and the leadership void that is occurring along with it -- is going to continue to be a challenge, as will the questions of how do we continue to develop the next generation of educators, school safety, and school funding. These are recurring themes; they will continue.
And then we’re seeing it across the country, in most cases well-intended but overreaching federal and state intervention into local school governance. That’s a challenge. Ultimately schools are going to have to be much better at sharing their story, because there are a lot of stories being told about public education and about local schools. If you don’t tell your story, someone else will. We’ve got to tell our story in a compelling way to our school communities.
Ultimately, I believe strongly that public schools are our best hope for the future of our country and for the future of our democracy.
Your next role is as the first Executive Director of the new Consortium of State School Boards Associations (COSSBA), of which IASB is a founding member. What are you expecting in that organization’s first few years?
Tom: Certainly, a big part of starting an organization is building out the infrastructure, hiring the staff, getting everything in place, and developing the backbone and the foundation of the organization. So that work will continue.
We believe as a national organization, that strong, healthy, relevant state school board associations focused on training boards to excel in local school governance ultimately produce better outcomes for students. And that’s what we need to be about, helping our state school board associations build their capacity to serve their boards, because ultimately that means better outcomes for students.
We’re preparing as well for the addition of more member associations, we’ll be at 24 states on July 1, but it sounds like more states will be coming in. We are looking at how COSSBA can serve as a resource and a conduit for important information about state policies that are occurring across the country, providing resources that our state associations and the leadership of those associations need to continue to provide opportunities for local board members to connect with colleagues from across the country. Also, we’re preparing leadership development opportunities for the leaderships of our state school board associations and the executive directors across the country. Those will be a focus, as will be not forgetting who we work for – the state school board associations – and serving them well.
What final advice do you have to offer school board members?
Tom: We need you now more than ever. We need stable, reasonable, committed leadership for our schools. We know we’ve emerged from what could have been the toughest two-to-three-year period to ever serve on a school board. But the work is not done, and the work of the school board is to set the strategic destination of the school district that the board serves.
I encourage boards to stay focused on student outcomes. There’s a lot of noise out there. There are a lot of adult issues that you might be dealing with, but never forget it’s about student outcomes.
Also be mindful of the fact that there is still that large silent majority out in your community. You often hear from the vocal minority, but there’s this large silent majority that frankly is exhausted and frustrated. The government might not be working for them at the federal level or at the state level, but they’ve always found comfort in knowing that local school governance has worked and continues to work. Be mindful of that, that they’re supportive of the board. You might hear from the naysayers at a board meeting, but I know when I was a superintendent, I used to remind the board of how many registered voters they actually represented, because sometimes a very vocal minority shows up at a school board meeting, but they don’t represent the number of registered voters, who might be 100 times or a thousand times the number of people that showed up at your meeting. That’s important to be mindful of.
Trust but verify at a school board level. I think the most important question for boards to ask is how do we know? And to fill in the blank from a board perspective, asking “How do we know that this program is serving children and their families?” It starts with asking that question. Trust but verify. That’s your responsibility because ultimately local school board governance works, but it only works through caring, committed people who are willing to serve on the school board.
I’m just grateful for their service and my time with this Association, I will leave with gratitude for the so many hundreds, thousands of school board members that I’ve met who truly want what’s best for the children and their families in their community, and who truly believe in the importance of public education and the importance of service. Fewer people are willing to serve today in all organizations. And so it’s just critically important that we have that type of committed leadership for our schools.
I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have served the association. It’s been a great opportunity. We’ve had a great staff here at IASB that will continue to serve the members, and I look forward to continuing my near-40 years of service in public education in and around it. I’m committed to it and look forward to the work ahead and wish all of our school board members in Illinois, and our staff here at IASB, the very best in the work ahead.
Theresa Kelly Gegen is a Director of Communications/Editorial Services for IASB and Editor of the Illinois School Board Journal. Isaac Warren is Assistant Director of Digital Communications for IASB. A recorded version of this conversation will be available via the resources link at www.iasb.com/Journal.