Volunteering too much

OPINION

In the combative world of school politics, flak has been flying about veteran San Francisco school board commissioner Jill Wynns's expenses for out-of-town, board-related conferences and events.

Not everyone understands that school board members donate unpaid volunteer time to attend these events. Board members get a flat $500 a month, period. Wynns incurs more travel expenses than other board members because she donates more unpaid time.

Are these trips Jack Abramoff–style junkets to lavish resorts? Not unless your idea of vacation paradise is a windowless hotel conference room and a lengthy agenda about education-related state legislative and budget items.

Commissioners aren't elbowing each other out of the way to get to these events. Wynns and fellow commissioners Eddie Chin and Eric Mar are all delegates to the California School Boards Association. Chin and Mar aren't able to attend as regularly as Wynns, who rarely misses a meeting. The only San Francisco Unified School District board member without a day job or young children at home, Wynns is free to do more traveling and networking. She has acquired years of contacts and a statewide and national reputation among her peers.

Why bother with these boring state and national conferences? Advocates say it's crucial to keep urban schools' specific challenges in the spotlight, especially because delegates from suburban and rural school districts vastly outnumber urban representatives in the CSBA.

Wynns's regular participation and networking builds up San Francisco's credibility, which helps when our district needs support for an issue.

Wynns also serves on the CSBA board of directors, representing a region encompassing San Francisco and San Mateo counties — an unpaid position that increases the SF school district's influence and also requires regular attendance.

In case that's not enough fun in the sun, the school district also participates in the Council of Urban Boards of Education, a subgroup of the National School Boards Association. Wynns serves on CUBE's national steering committee and cochairs its Racial Isolation Task Force. The task force continues to work on desegregation issues, including helping school districts design diverse assignment plans — a hot potato that CUBE has worked hard to keep the NSBA from dropping.

NSBA has lobbying clout on Capitol Hill, and urban districts have to be in the NSBA's face to keep our issues on the agenda. It takes hard work, networking, and sitting through a lot of long meetings and interminable presentations. It ain't a Royal Caribbean cruise.

The board members who do this dull but important work sacrifice to donate their own time and expertise. It's not just unfair to them to imply that their unpaid involvement is somehow suspect — it's harmful to the kids who will lose if critics succeed in discouraging San Francisco school board members from participating. *

Caroline Grannan

Caroline Grannan is a San Francisco public school parent, volunteer, and advocate.