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- Trustees Cruz and Fuentes placing the little yellow sticky notes at the board meeting on Aug. 23
If the San Jose/Evergreen School District is to solve its accreditation problems, it might first have to buy more of those little, yellow sticky notes.
The Aug. 23 meeting of the Board of Trustees saw the body make progress on self-evaluation, something that was emphasized as being a necessity in recent recommendations by the independent accreditation committee.
The trustees began with each of six broad categories listed on the board — planning, policy, broad role, chancellor relations, finances and ethics — then each trustee used the ubiquitous sticky notes to make their points on each topic. Each category was further defined by subtopics.
“This communication allows everyone to open up and speak,” trustee Maria Fuentes said. “And the better we are as a board to receive information, the better will be our relationships (to better serve our students).”
At the end of the day, the South wall of the meeting room was covered with swaths of butcher paper and little, yellow sticky notes fluttering in the air-conditioned breeze.
“(This exercise) gives us good ideas and good direction,” trustee Randy Okamura said. “Let’s not leave these ideas in a report on a shelf but make them part of our strategic plan. These ideas will help us to be the board we want and can be.”
