vGREENEWAY continued from page 7 someday like to serve on the school board. “I admired the position. I just thought that would be something I would really like to do,” she explained. After completing a term on the Chamber board and looking for something to apply herself to, Greeneway decided to run for an open position on the school board. She was appointed to finish Dave Hosmer’s term beginning in April 2009. She is now completing her sixth year, having served two terms and will begin her third term in July. The board elects every year for Vice President and President, and Kathy has taken a spot in each position. “Everything is changing all the time in education. That’s probably one of the reasons why I like it as much as I do because every month, or every week, we have something new that’s coming, or challenging, and needing to address how best we can get it to affect the most students that we can in the best positive way,” she explains. Everyone’s role on the board is really the same, though the Vice President and President have a few more duties. The Vice President steps forward to chair a meeting if the President is absent. The President works with the Superintendent to plan the agenda and topics for the monthly meetings and leads, educates and provides guidance for other board members if there are questions about a policy in discussion. Handling the news and press releases, the President takes on the spokesperson responsibilities. The President also serves as a liaison between the board and Superintendent, relaying concerns and topics back and forth between parties for discussion. Greeneway’s personal vision for her role on the board has changed over her tenure. A straightforward vision to start, she explains, “My vision for the first year that I was there was I just wanted to educate myself as much as I could to understand, because I came in not knowing anything about how a school board or how a district was run. To further educate herself, Greeneway turned to the state school board resource, the Associated School Boards of South Dakota (ASBSD). This resource center for all school boards in South Dakota offers unbiased training and classes. Greeneway explained that it probably 16vHERVOICE JULY/AUGUST 2015 took her the first two or three years to understand how the board works and its functions. “I wanted to be a good steward, make sure that using taxpayer’s money the best way we could, make sure that we were doing the best we could to offer kids programs and education pieces.” She was so interested in the ASBSD that she braved the challenger for a position to serve on the ASBSD board. She won that challenge and is now a Director on this board for the Southeast region. Greeneway’s education didn’t stop there. The ASBSD offers a module designed to prepare school boards to provide successful leadership, called Governance Academy of Visionary Education Leadership (GAVEL). She completed the required courses to become GAVEL certified, explaining, “If you’re going to be a representative of education, you need to be educated.” Once Greeneway completed her GAVEL certification and saw how much information and structure there was on board member education and training, her personal vision changed. “My vision was to bring that back to the board and certify the whole entire board, in which I completed in January. Every single member of the board is GAVEL certified.” The GAVEL training has helped them to make minor adjustments in how they run their meetings, their agenda preparation and consistency. The five-person school board has oversight of the district, their primary role to set the district’s policy. They also review the budget at the beginning of the year, planning a year in advance while taking into consideration revenue, expenses and projected number of students. The school board’s most important responsibility though, Greeneway feels, is being objective and keeping an opening mind. She explains, “Looking at both sides before rendering a decision and making sure you have that transparency. Ultimately, you want to benefit the students to give them the best potential opportunity.” When I asked Greeneway about the school board’s biggest challenge, she didn’t hesitate. “Funding and finances.” She explained that the school board can’t count on and rely on the consistency of the funding that is coming in because they must consider funding cuts and declining enrollment while working with vGREENEWAY continued on page 21 Graduate to gracious living... Walnut Village ...a refined choice for your golden years... Senior Apartments The perfect blend of privacy and community Many other features included such as activities and exercise class. Elevator and gathering/party rooms available. 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