Decorah School Board's Rick Valley: "I will not seek re-election"

Decorah School Board member Rick Valley has announced he will not seek re-election to the school board this fall.  Valley made the announcement in a Letter to the Editor:

"In September of this year, I will be completing my seventh year as a member of the Decorah Community School District's board of directors. I have decided that this second term on the board will be my last, and I will not run for re-election this year. I am making this public announcement at this time to encourage other members of the Decorah Community School District to consider running for the board.

Last year, the school board was faced with a decision to either accept the board member redistricting plan provided to us or to make all members of the school board at large positions. The board chose to make all positions at large positions, so anyone in the district who is eighteen or over and not employed full-time by the district may run for school board at the biennial election. I want to encourage any district member interested in serving on the board to step forward and become a candidate.

My time on the school board has been a very interesting and, sometimes, challenging experience. From the outside, it might appear to many people that the school board focuses on approving contracts and large purchases. In fact, the school board also reviews, creates, and approves the policies that provide a framework for the school district to operate on a day-to-day basis. The members of the board have seen their primary focus evolve from delegating to the hired professionals most of the educational decisions to more involvement in facilitating learning improvements. Even though we recognize the many traditional parts of the board's function in the organization, we now are constantly trying to understand how the pressures for learning improvement are impacting the teachers and administrators who are hired to guide our students through learning from the preschool level through graduation from high school. Although there are times when multiple meetings seem to demand a lot of a board member's time, the results reported to us in terms of academic and co-curricular successes provide a great deal of satisfaction, especially in the Decorah Community Schools.

There are a lot of decisions ahead for this board as the members continue to facilitate the learning of our community's students in the near and more distant future. Decisions will include those that support our staff's efforts to implement the many state and national mandates and to provide the best possible tools and facilities that our resources allow. I would encourage anyone interested in becoming a candidate to contact me or any other current or past school board member to discuss the role of the board. There is a wide range of issues that come before the board, and I hope any candidate will go into an election planning to be willing to address these many issues.

In August of this year, my wife and I will commemorate our arrival in Decorah 40 years ago. During my first 32 years here, I was employed by the school district as a teacher and library-media specialist at Decorah High School. I will always be proud of my association with the district, both as a faculty member and a school board member. Thank you for the opportunity for both experiences."