Get Involved in the Resolutions Process!

Posted on

POLICY & ADVOCACY

Tiffany Jackson, AASB Director of Membership Services

It’s that time of year again when school is starting, and school boards that may have taken a summer break from meetings are coming back together to work on behalf of their students. That means it’s also time for school boards to start thinking about the AASB resolutions process!

The call for resolutions went out the second week of August. Included in the call for resolutions were the following documents:

  • The 2023 proposed new resolution opposing redistricting.
  • The 2023 draft #2 Where We Stand document with resolutions moving on to the Resolutions committee on Thursday, November 3rd.
  • A list of the resolutions which are due to sunset this year, along with the staff and Board of Directors’ recommendations regarding these resolutions.
  • A document covering the Resolutions process and timeline.
  • A link to a form to submit any new resolutions to the resolutions committee in November.
  • A draft resolution on Tribal Compacting and one on Creating Comprehensive Support for Families and Students to Navigate College and Career Training Opportunities. 

These documents can be viewed online and downloaded here.

So now that you have all of these documents, you may be asking yourself, now what?

From now until October 4th, 2022, school districts have time to review the documents provided. As a district, you can decide if there are any new resolutions the district would like the Association to support. If so, the district can submit these to the Association online via the link to the form provided. Any newly proposed resolution must be supported by the district and be submitted to AASB no later than October 4th, 2022, as per the AASB Constitution and Bylaws, Article 9, section 2.  

AASB will compile all resolutions submitted by October 4th and return them to all the districts for additional review no later than October 15th, 2022. Districts are encouraged to review newly submitted resolutions prior to attending the Annual Conference.  

AASB also highly recommends each school district appoint one school board member to attend the Resolutions Committee meeting on November 3rd, 2022, at the Hotel Captain Cook. We recommend this school board appointee not be a brand new school board member as we suggest brand new school board members attend the Ready, Set, Govern session on the same day. The work done on November 3rd will be to review all resolutions submitted to AASB by October 4th and continuing resolutions to make a recommendation to the General Assembly on Sunday, November 6th.  

On Sunday, November 6th, all member districts of AASB will come together to meet for the delegate assembly at the Hotel Captain Cook, where the recommendations of the November 3rd meeting of the Resolutions Committee will be taken up and voted on. It’s important for each member school board to be in attendance at this business meeting, as the resulting resolutions will guide the work of the Association moving forward.  

Sometimes we’re asked why AASB has so many resolutions. The answer is that AASB will only take a position on an issue if the membership has passed a resolution on the matter. If a legislator or other body comes to AASB asking for our position on something the membership hasn’t voted on, we cannot take a position on the issue. This is why you’ll sometimes see recommendations for possible additional resolutions like this year on Tribal Compacting and Creating Comprehensive Support for Families and Students to Navigate College and Career Training Opportunities. We know these are hot topics or topics of importance, which we are not resolved around as an association. If member districts would like AASB to take a position on these issues or additional issues identified by the district, they should vote to propose a new resolution to the Resolutions Committee and submit it to AASB by October 4th.  

I look forward to working with all the districts as AASB moves forward with this critical process for the Association. As always, if there are any questions about the resolutions process, you can always feel free to reach out to me at tjackson@aasb.org.

, ,