I would like to respond to comments about my minority views questioning community engagement and representing diversity with flags by writing about my other minority views on the Highline School Board.

First, I would like to say that the school board is in agreement on many important issues. These are few issues where we differ.

While I do question the current strategy of community engagement, I am in favor of other forms of community engagement. For instance, I am in favor of schools using e-mail or Twitter, a cell phone messaging service, to notify parents of open houses, their student's assignments and other announcements.

I am in favor of a Learning to Learn Any Language class. Highline teaches Spanish, French, German and Japanese. The top five languages spoken in Highline are Spanish, Somali, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Punjabi.

Another form of community outreach I support is for the board to hire an ombudservice. The only way to talk to the board now is to drive to a meeting and speak into a microphone. A phone number for the ombudservice could be posted at every school.

Also, school board meetings frequently end with no one in attendance except the superintendent, district employees and the reporter from this newspaper. The meetings consist mostly of the board consenting to PTA donations and to routine business decisions.

I have suggested we turn these decisions over to the superintendent and focus our time on the budget, policy and achievement. Once a month, the Board would have a Stand Up meeting and invite members of the PTA who made a donation and invite students, district employees and volunteers who deserve recognition. Citizens and representatives of groups would have their time to speak. Then we would have dessert and mingle.

While the school district is developing its technology plan that includes all students having access to the Internet, the board is divided over how the Internet should be used. Here is an exercise to clarify the issue. It is a fact that when the first case of bird flu occurs in the I-5 corridor all schools will close for six weeks. Right now students will know bird flu has hit when the school bus fails to pick them up and they will know to go back to school when the nightly news makes the announcement. In between will be six weeks of educational blank space.

Another scenario could be that as soon as bird flu hits, the school district would e-mail or Twitter parents about the closure and send updates during the weeks. Students would find their assignments on their login site, participate in on line discussions, e-mail their teachers and post creative content to their Highline School District social networking site. Six weeks later students would go back to school having stayed in contact with their teacher and classmates.

If the incoming board members in November reflect the current board we will have scenario one for a long, long time.

As far as questioning the status quo, there is nothing more useful I can do as a school board director than to ask the question, is this the best way to represent our students, to use our time as board members and, most importantly, is this the best way to educate our students?

Susan Goding

Highline School Board Director