Former educator: School board members should visit schools and prioritize student health

This is a column by Martha Giddens Nesbit, the retired director of instruction for Oglethorpe Charter School. She is a member of the Savannah Morning News' community advisory board.

I took a month considering a run for school board president one election cycle ago. I researched what school boards did (they set policy and don’t micromanage), and I called several of my friends who had served on the Savannah Chatham County Board of Education.

I eventually decided that family commitments would prevent me from serving. It’s a tough job, and usually not a popular one. But the job of the school board is one of the most important in our community. 

Who am I to offer direction to the new school board? I spent two years working to get the state of Georgia to pass legislation allowing for charter schools and then worked with a group of community volunteers to start Oglethorpe Charter School.

I worked there for 12 years as director of instruction. I have two sons who attended public schools through 8th grade - Isle of Hope Elementary, DeRenne and Oglethorpe. I have visited every middle school and many of the elementary schools and high schools.

Since retirement, I have been a reading tutor at Isle of Hope Elementary, helped start a uniform closet at Shuman Elementary and served for a short while on Savannah Classical’s board. I’m also a property owner who has paid taxes to the school system for 45 years.

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Getting to know schools, up close and personal

We have some exceptional schools, teachers, parents and students. But I can assure you that all of the schools are not equal. Here are some thoughts on priorities that might improve our school, offered by someone who believes that a good education is the best gift we can give a child and that teaching is one of the noblest professions one can have. 

First, board members should get to know their schools upfront and personally. Visit every school in the district when the students are there. Lunchtime is good because that’s when everyone is out and about. You can tell a lot about a school from seeing who is in it.

This will help board members when they have to make decisions that not only affect the schools they personally represent but also those they don’t represent. Be sure to include the charter schools, because they are public schools, too.

A group bus tour, perhaps? 

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Keeping students safe, healthy and happy

There’s nothing wrong with The Way Forward 2026 Strategic Plan the school board published on the Savannah Chatham BOE website last year. It focuses on student success, family engagement, recruitment and retention of teachers, fiscal responsibility and stewardship. 

I would add one more stand-alone: safety.

This would include everything from bus stops to masks. My question regarding the strategic plan is: How does a board member know these things are happening at each school? Is this plan the focus of every meeting, with data showing that the plan is being implemented? Is every single staff person - from the cleaning crew to the cafeteria workers and the support staff - in on the training? Are they all allowed input on how to make their school better? Does every school have the resources they need to follow the plan? 

As for how to spend money - one of the board’s top priorities - coming out of a two-year pandemic, there are lots of learning gaps and mental-health issues surfacing. So, board members should focus federal money on strategies that work - more helpers in the classroom, more tutoring during school hours for families who don’t have afterschool pickup options, more counselors and more nurses to address health and social issues. 

Bus monitors could also improve health and well-being. You can stop a lot of bullying and silly behavior that gets out of hand if you had someone to monitor the buses. 

The important thing is that research has shown that students literally can’t learn when their worlds are falling apart - that’s what social-emotional learning means. Focus on strategies that address this. 

Let teachers teach

We will never have good schools unless we have teachers who feel good about their work. What teachers tell me is that they want to have time to plan, teach, contact parents for support and grade assessments.

They have too many duties that interfere with this. They are also concerned about new legislation that appears to restrict what topics they can discuss in the classroom. Students are the ones who often generate the topics, and they do it because they trust their teachers to be honest with them. How can board policy address giving teachers what they need and deserve? 

It’s great to have involved parents, but I wonder how many of them tell their doctors how to practice or their accountants how to prepare their taxes? A simple way to handle a challenged book in a school library? Have the parent sign a “no check out” for each and every book they don’t want their child to read. That child will not have access, but others will.

A new board won’t be able to fix all the issues at once. But monitoring the strategic plan that is in place with data and focusing on staffing that meets students' needs is a step in the right direction.

Every single vote needs to be preceded by the question: Does this follow our strategic plan? Is this vote in the best interest of all students?