The real work of the state school board is far more about making sausage than grabbing headlines, notwithstanding the occasional flare-up in the cultural wars.Carol Lear, one of two Democrats in the 15-member board, was first elected to the body in 2016, before it became a partisan post, and opposed the move in 2020, including as a plaintiff in a lawsuit. She hasn’t seen much good come out of the change.With just two Democrats, the school board’s partisan divisions are mostly between the five moderates and the farther right Republicans.“There was a real, I was going to say unmitigated but not a secret effort in this last election to get rid of some moderates on the board so that it would be more closely aligned with the supermajority of the Legislature,” Lear said. She noted that the school board has less influence with the state lawmakers today than ever.The one-time high school English teacher, 27-year director of law and policy for the state Office of Education, and then attorney who focuses unsurprisingly on education issues has an adult lifetime of connection to the state school board and the issues it does resolve and to greater and lesser degrees over the years, influence.The state school board did not impose the book ban, require that every district and charter school hire their own armed guards, decide where transgender people can go to the bathroom on campus, pass the voucher law Utah Fits All, or leave Utah at the second-lowest level of state funding for public schools in the nation.The Legislature did all that, which of course is its job.The state school board does up its meeting schedule from monthly to weekly during the six-week annual legislative session and review education bills. But mostly, the staff works with legislators and their staffs in hopes of providing guidance. Lear believes the lawmakers would be wiser to heed their suggestions, which would improve the practical quality and efficiency of the education bills they pass — and save money by doing so.The state school board’s main duties are decidedly less sexy. The board sets standards in such stuff as curriculum and programs, licensing, financial compliance, policies governing the full range of what school districts and charter schools do. The board also serves as the local school board for the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind. The local districts base their policies on meeting criteria set by the state board.There’s far more scrutiny of things like the driver’s ed manual than hot discussion over sex education, the guts of free-meal reporting than deciding whether to overturn the ban of a specific book — which the state school board declined to take on this year.“I’ve noticed when new members get on the board,” Lear said. “And I’ve been listening to board meetings for 40 years, almost, and so they’re very interesting to me. I mean there’s moments when they are even snoozers for me too, but I’ve seen these new board members thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so tedious. This is not really what I signed up for.’”It’s not that members don’t have opinions, and Lear holds hers strongly: The voucher program is flawed, costly and lacks academic accountability found in other states; this could be improved if the supermajority Legislature maybe listened a little better. She agrees with reducing class size, to a point, but is concerned about the incredible expense in carrying this out, whether there are enough classrooms that would be needed, and sees how this would aggravate Utah’s ongoing teacher shortage. The safety bill that mandates paid guards for every district takes dollars directly from educating kids, and she sees better ways to achieve the goal than another blunt mandate.She tends to see practical solutions for unintended messes created by a lot of what the Legislature has passed concerning education.  The scope of the school board’s constitutional role is more nuanced and specialized. And here is where she sees potential to address the state’s teacher shortage, for instance.“The hardest thing about teaching was the inflexibility of it,” she said, recalling her own time in the job in her 20s, a part of the work that hasn’t not changed much. Measures that could only help with retention and making a great job otherwise more attractive, she believes. A floating professional substitute, say, letting retired teachers come back at better than entry level pay, figuring out creative ways to make the job less stuck in tight scheduling, job sharing in the classroom.  She’d like to see districts experiment with pilot programs in subsidizing quality preschool beyond Head Start, which is limited to lower income families. Research suggests preschool is a powerful boost for achievement in later years. It could also help with the teaching shortage for young moms.She’s also a stickler for teacher licensing, recognizing this is work for professionals, even if they’re not always recognized as such.  As for the book ban, rival candidate Diane Livingston’s calling card, fair or not, largely results from Livingston challenging books at the Park City School Board in 2022 and being frustrated at how long it would take to ban them.Lear, with her attorney’s hat on, said, yes, it’s called due process. It should take time. But she sees better ways to accomplish the same goal without so blunt a tool as a ban affecting all the schools in the state if any three decide they don’t like a particular book.  “I think that symbolically, for me, it’s super important. You don’t ban books in school, and if you want to give parents more choice, you do something else,” she said. She suggested books can be evaluated and parents notified so they can make their own decisions about whether they are appropriate for their child. True local control.She said she would welcome a legal challenge to the book ban, but the school board members, including her, don’t see good coming out of attempts to overturn the ban of books, at least for now.“I really worry, given the makeup of the Legislature, that if we tried to go back to moderate part that part of it, it would just get worse,” she said.  Meantime, there’s plenty of work left for the state school board far away from what gins up a social media sensation or big headlines. That’s where she wants to continue trying to make a difference, and she’s still excited about it.  The post Lear finds passion in the state school board grind appeared first on Park Record.