This was originally published in the Citrus County Chronicle on Sunday, March 13, 2022.

Parents’ Involvement in School Advisory Councils

By Thomas Kennedy

For decades School Advisory Councils have been one of the great places for parents to have a strong and guiding voice in the school rules, budget, curriculum, and more in their child’s school. Often parents will share that SAC is the most immediate and direct way to have influence in their child’s school.

School Advisory Councils, commonly known as SACs, were formed in Florida Statutes in the early 1990s.  Retired School Board Members Pat Deutschman and I were parents who began our public service on SACs at our children’s schools.  I had the blessing of serving both as a member of SAC and as Chairman for several years at Citrus Springs Elementary and Central Ridge Elementary before being elected to the school board.

It is important to understand that SACs’ responsibilities and roles differ greatly from other parent groups like school PTAs and PTOs. SACs assist in actual decision-making at the school level and are a vital way to provide parents’ perspectives, voices, and support of the public education system for our students. Over the years, some of our best curriculum tools began as SAC’s initiatives.  SACs are often places where parents make impactful decisions in the classroom. For example, it was SACs that first approved and funded computers, iPads, and other major innovative curricula in schools.

SACs have been the places where a wide range of stakeholders— parents, students, community members, teachers, staff, and administrators— sit down together and review students’ performance data in detail, discipline data, staffing, and other items in the scope of their review. State law even requires that a majority of the SAC members be parents and community members not employed by the school district.  From the data reviews and in-depth discussions about the strengths, weaknesses, and needs of the school, the school administration with SAC develop the annual, statutorily required School Improvement Plan with measurable goals and timelines for review. The improvement plan then becomes the goal and the focus of the school.  During these council meetings, many ‘Aha’ moments lead to improvements and contribute to our district consistently being highly rated and above the state in many areas. Many of our school district’s successes can be attributed to the high expectations set by SACs, the Superintendent, and the School Board.

SACs are in Florida Statue 1001.452. The law states, “The school advisory council shall be the sole body responsible for final decisionmaking at the school relating to implementation of (the School Improvement Plan)”.  It further mandates that the “school advisory council shall assist in the preparation of the school’s annual budget and (school improvement) plan).” When SACs were first established, they were provided $10.00 per student to meet the objectives of the School Improvement Plan.  Later that was reduced by more than half with funding provided by the Florida Lottery revenues through the “discretionary lottery funds”. At this time funding is not currently guaranteed, but we are able to use the unused funds from the “Teacher Classroom Supply Assistance” (s. 1012.71) to distribute to the school SACs to decide on the school-based curriculum, initiatives, and needs to meet the objectives of the School Improvement Plan.

Each SAC’s responsibilities are defined in Florida Statutes, School Board policy, and SAC’s By-laws. Depending on the size of the school, a SAC will have 12 to 20 members.  This includes that the SAC members represent teachers, education support employees, students, and parents.  Each stakeholder shall be elected by their respective peer groups at the school in a fair and equitable manner. Florida statute also states that the SAC membership elected must be “representative of the ethnic, racial, and economic community served by the school”. If it does not, principals must make recommendations and the “district school board shall appoint additional members to achieve proper representation”. In addition, Citrus County School Board has a long-standing tradition of each school board member being assigned multiple SACs and each board member attends the assigned SACs meetings. I have attended hundreds of SAC meetings over the years, and it is still one of my favorite responsibilities.

The great purpose of School Advisory Councils has always been to increase parent and community involvement and oversight in their students’ schools.  I encourage parents and guardians to look for information about SAC meetings and how to become SAC members.  For those of you who have served on a School Advisory Council, as a parent and school board member I thank you for your service.

Thomas Kennedy is a School Board Member for Citrus County School Board, District 1. Read his blog at http://www.thomastalks.org.

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