Leadership TASB Class of 2025 Launches

Controllers in hand and eyes fixed on a video game, a group of students were guiding and encouraging curious school board trustees who were eager to learn more about gaming strategy and esports. Thanks to their student counterparts, trustees in the new Leadership TASB Class of 2025 were having fun while learning about an innovative program.

The game play might have appeared to be just for fun, but as the students and teachers at Fort Sam Houston ISD’s Robert G. Cole Middle and High School in San Antonio shared, the RGC Esports club offers students another way to explore technology and build inclusivity while also providing career exploration opportunities.

“This program, doing it as a club, you’ve got kids who may not belong to any other club, this is a place of belonging,” said Sara Burleson, a school board trustee from Midland ISD and an LTASB class member. Burleson noted the program was a way for students to build connections and gain access to technology and learn about future career paths. And while some folks may not fully understand esports, Burleson thought from an educational and technological perspective, it was worthy of exploration.

‘Boots on the Ground’

The esports program was just the first of many classroom stops that the 34 members of the newest LTASB cohort will be making over the next year as part of the program’s efforts to provide participants with an in-depth exploration of leadership skills and immersive experiences. The group will examine best practices and research-based techniques for leading school improvement efforts through policy, collaboration, and community engagement.

The group had its first meeting in September at txEDCON24, where members had an introduction to the LTASB program before embarking on their first field trips, touring two of Fort Sam Houston ISD’s campuses in the morning, followed by an afternoon visit to Randolph Field ISD. Both districts are located on military bases, which provided the trustees with a unique experience and view into innovative programming.

The cohort normally holds its inaugural meeting during txEDCON, where they get an introduction to the norms and expectations of the program, and then begin bonding and connecting, which is integral to the LTASB experience, said Robert Long III, division director of Board Development Services and LTASB program manager.

“This year, we started the program off strong and integrated field trips in our inaugural weekend,” Long said. “The trustees wanted to get boots on the ground and see how districts on military bases do things. It was the perfect way to capture the importance of this work they will be doing.”

Visiting the campuses gave the trustees a chance to explore the unique challenges that the districts face and allowed them to see the innovative solutions they use to address these situations, he said.

Because the district is on a military base, it is not able to collect property taxes or hold bond elections, which can pose challenges for funding programs or projects, officials with Fort Sam Houston ISD explained during the campus tour. The district is one of three military school districts in Texas, all located in San Antonio, and it serves roughly 1,630 students. The district relies heavily on grants and other funding, such as Department of Defense Education grants, to support its needs.

Student Leadership

During the visit, trustees split into small groups to tour the campus, stopping in classrooms and learning about programs directly from students. One group of trustees met with student cadets in the JROTC program, who explained that the school created the Leadership and Character Development Corps, which is geared toward supporting middle school students.

Because students may relocate many times, the district has built systems that support the school culture and address students’ high mobility. The LCDC program allows the older students to gain leadership skills while they mentor those who are younger. The goal is to help students maintain connections and to acclimate more easily.

Burleson said she was really impressed with the program and the student leaders, adding that she thought a similar program could benefit students in her district in West Texas.

“I know in our district we have a lot of movement, though not military,” she said. “To take some of this learning from a school that does have movement, taking the students where they are, building those leadership skills in them and ... having mentors for them when they come in. I thought that was really good.”

Even though the district has a large number of students who may transfer in or out, it still has high expectations for academic achievement.

Positive Planning

Mina Schnitta, Fort Sam Houston ISD’s assistant superintendent for teaching and learning said, “Our mobility is not an excuse for us.”

To support its teachers, the district focuses on instructional coaching and also ensures that teachers in every core area meet with their professional learning communities and have a planning period every day, Schnitta said. One positive result of the increased focus on planning and instruction is that the high school was able to improve its college, career, and military readiness scores from 67% last year to 91% today, she said.

The LTASB group finished its morning enjoying a lunch that the school’s culinary arts students prepared.

Networking and Collaboration

During the field trip, Robert Anderson from West Rusk County Consolidated ISD said he was getting acclimated to LTASB and enjoying the program. Coming from an East Texas district with 1,030 students, he said he felt blessed that his district didn’t have to contend with some of the challenges larger districts were facing. But he agreed one area posing a challenge to most districts was budgets.

“You know, one of them [LTASB members] told me they had like a $340 million annual budget, whereas ours is like $14 million,” Anderson said. “But still, you have to stretch that money to cover all the different expenditures.”

Anderson said he’d applied to LTASB at the urging of a fellow board member, Will Sudweeks, who had participated as a member of the Class of 2019. “He began talking to me about it, trying to coach me into it,” Anderson said. “Finally, I just decided to hook up. Hopefully, it will help me to grow to be a better leader, a better communicator, and overall, a better board member.”

He isn’t alone. Many of the other participants said they applied because they heard it would be a great opportunity to build a network while also gaining skills to be more effective leaders.

Leadership TASB was developed and designed by school board members for school board members in 1993 as part of TASB's goal to provide visionary leadership to Texas school boards. Since its founding, LTASB has developed into the premier school board training program in the state with more than 1,000 alumni Master Trustees.

Trustees will have three more field trips. They will be traveling to El Paso, Austin, Brazos, and the Research Valley, and concluding the program presenting their final capstone projects prior to graduation in Fort Worth in June 2025 during Summer Leadership Institute.

Lisa Kallies from Crosby ISD, which is located northeast of Houston, has been on her board less than two years. She was initially hesitant to apply since she is still new to her board. She pictured the participants as trustees who had been serving for quite some time. But after hearing about the benefits of the program from an LTASB graduate on her board, she took the chance.

“I started thinking how nice it would be to just have a network of people who do what I do because you just kind of know what is going on in your area, and even then you communicate real briefly with your own board,” she said, adding that being able to connect with other trustees who she could bounce ideas off would make her feel like she wasn’t on an island.

Along with building a supportive network, Kallies said she was most excited to “just really learn how to be an effective trustee. It is going to exponentially speed up what might otherwise take me years to figure out.”

Mary Ann Lopez is a staff writer for Texas Lone Star.

This article first appeared in the December 2024 issue of Texas Lone Star.