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Trustee Building Observations

Posted by Carol Popolow Abraham on February 14, 2022 at 8:13am

Hi All!

How many of you conduct trustee tours of the school buildings that are led by the building Principal while the students are in session? (These would be in addition to facilities condition tours led by the facilities administrator, not part of facilities condition evaluation)

If you do these do you allow classroom observation during the tour?

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Replies

  • Laura Trentacoste March 1, 2022 at 12:41pm
    Sarah, I like the idea of "learning walks" for the trustees. Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences.
  • Amber Yusuf February 28, 2022 at 10:39am
    We tour all of our 7 buildings annually, with up to 3 trustees on each tour. The Principal and VP of the building lead the tour, and we visit different classrooms as we walk through the building. One trustee sends a detailed report to all of the trustees, and then presents high-level information as an opening comment at a board meeting.
  • Sarah Carrier February 27, 2022 at 8:29pm
    We work with our district clerk to set up learning walks at each of our buildings during the year for BOE trustees who are available. We generally visit a few classrooms with administration and then debrief. It has been a great opportunity to see classrooms in action.
  • Cindy Strong February 23, 2022 at 2:07pm
    We do tours once in awhile, our Superintendent completely supports them when they are done. We have 4 schools in our district so at our reorganization meeting in July each Board member signs up for a school. Each of us then goes to the school events.
    Foe us it's hard to organize a tour during the day with our work schedules. Sometimes it's just a couple members.
  • Tom Flynn February 18, 2022 at 3:16pm
    We have a board member that helps organize our building walk throughs. We usually do about three per year.
  • Heidi Cambareri February 18, 2022 at 1:05pm
    Thank you for this question. In our district BOE tours or access to buildings has been minimal. Pre-Covid the Board would be invited to one or two school buildings each year for a tour with principal. That stopped with Covid. We have requested a facilities tour this spring so the BOE can see first-hand recent improvements and upcoming projects as part of the budget process.
  • Rob Curtis February 18, 2022 at 12:19pm
    I’ve been in all of our buildings buildings during the school day to view programs/assemblies but never a formal building tour.
  • Patrick Talty February 17, 2022 at 5:53pm
    I’m from a 2,900 student district and we essentially have unfettered access. We wouldn’t show up unannounced, but a same day visit is possible with a phone call to our Superintendent who is very supportive of our visits. Our community likes seeing our tweets from the schools and the teachers always seem to appreciate the opportunity to share with us the wonderful things happening in their classrooms.
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