Taylor Connard

Education 650

Faculty Senate

This August, we had our first faculty senate meeting. This meeting is led by teachers, but

administration always sits in on it and helps answer questions and concerns we have. With the

uncertainty of the school year looming, teachers and administrators were definitely on edge

during the meeting. Faculty senate can be very important to the running of the school.

The first item was to nominate new faculty senate chairholders, but once that was

complete, everyone began to discuss the business at hand. One of the first items was about

faculty senate money. Our principal informed us that four new teachers were hired and therefore

we have to allocate them funds. That allocation has to be equal across the teachers. This is a huge

administrative task that has to be taken seriously. All money has to be accounted for and

distributed equally. The principal must be able to give an account for all funds. Next, the meeting

turned to PPE for teachers. Our principal also informed us that if we needed any PPE, that it

would be provided for us at a later date. This of course did cause some issues because a few

teachers wanted us to refuse to come to work until that was provided. I can see that this

conversation definitely was bothering the administrators because it was crossing into strike

territory. We were informed that anything we needed would be provided and that it would not

have to come to that. The meeting then came to an end.

As an administrator, these meetings are very important. You not only get to have

discussions about important topics, but you mainly get to hear your staff give their opinions. I

believe that it is easy to get caught up in your daily tasks that you forget to ask your staff how

they feel about things. Faculty senate is the perfect opportunity to do that.