Adrian Public Schools honors school board members during annual recognition month
ADRIAN — More than 50 years of educational service to the Adrian Public Schools community was recognized during the most recent board of education meeting in January.
With the annual observance of School Board Recognition Month coming around each year during the month of January, the Adrian district and Superintendent Nate Parker provided gifts, keepsakes and verbal praise to its seven board members.
Those individuals serving on the Adrian Board of Education and their years of service are:
Vice president Jon Baucher, 18 years.
Trustee Michael Ballard, 14 years.
Trustee Tamaris Henagan, seven years.
President Beth Ferguson, six years.
Secretary Mike Buku, five years.
Trustee Jay Marks, four years.
Trustee Anna Solis-Gautz, elected in November 2022.
Each of the board members received recognition from Parker and specially made gifts provided by Adrian art students.
The Adrian Board of Education meets on the second and fourth Mondays of most months. There are some months when the board only has one meeting due to holidays or other occurances.
“Their service to this district is more than just two Mondays a month,” Parker said in his resolution. “There is a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, policy and meetings that they have to attend, too.”
School board members, he said, represent the views and the priorities of their community “in the complex system of maintaining and running a district’s public schools.”
“Our board demonstrates local control over public education at its best, and the steady hand that this school board provides our district is a huge asset to teaching and learning,” Parker continued.
A school board’s main goal is to support student achievement, Parker’s resolution said. To achieve that goal, Adrian’s board focuses on the following needs:
Creating a vision for what parents and citizens want their school district to become and how to make student achievement the top priority.
Setting standards for what students must learn and be able to do.
Assessing whether schools achieve their goals and whether students are learning.
Accounting for the outcomes of decisions and by tracking progress and reporting results.
Aligning the use of the district’s human and financial resources.
Creating a safe and orderly climate where students can learn and teachers can teach.
Collaborating to solve common problems and to support common successes.
Focusing on continuous improvement by questioning, examining, revising, refining and revisiting issues related to student achievement.
In other business
The Adrian Board of Education at its Jan. 23 meeting also:
Accepted four donations from community members earmarked for the baseball/softball seating project. Jerry and Patricia Gallatin donated $500, W. Johnson Service Inc. donated $400, Kapnick & Co. donated $1,500 and Kristen Cochran donated $1,000.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Adrian Public Schools honors school board members in January
