Recently a former school board member who was a legend in her community died. It got me to thinking about the contributions of school board members through the years. In many ways, our current successes have been built on the efforts of those in the past. January is also School Board Recognition Month, and I thought it might be nice to share positive stories about past board members.
I have worked closely and have gotten to know thousands of school board members throughout the 21 counties of New Jersey for close to 27 years. These relationships have been overwhelmingly positive ones. I have known board members committed to their communities and students in small one-building districts as well as large expansive districts. They have represented New Jersey’s racial and ethnic diversity. Some excellent board members have been Republican, and some have been Democrats. Many have no real political affiliation. Most of the time, I have no idea because it is not germane to the relationship.
Yet I am not writing this article from a professional perspective but from a personal one. I would like to tell the story of three board members who I knew in the early days of my career who really touched and influenced me because of their strong sense of morality. I can say with complete confidence that they also had a positive impact on others who knew them. Unfortunately, all three have since died, but their contributions have outlived them. They all also taught me a few lessons and made me a better person for having known them. I am not stating that these are the “best” board members I have ever known but that their stories do reflect some of the best qualities of a school board member.
As a final thought, I do not want to give an impression that these dedicated board members of the past are of an era that no longer exists. Not at all. If anything, the opposite. There are and always will be committed school board members. If you are reading this, my guess is that you may already know some.
Allen Rude
When I first started at the association, I worked as a county coordinator with the county school board associations in the northern region of the state. Yes, New Jersey is a small state, but I soon found out that each county had a different personality.
Most of us have a small geographic world – one restricted to where we live, work, and shop. I had to learn about each county, including the geography, because in those days there was no GPS, just Hagstrom maps. There were a few nights when I had to pull over to the side of the road to read a map by the dome light of my car to try and get to my destination.
It was not just the roads I had to navigate but the people and personalities. Not to mention the different school districts and various issues sometimes unique to a county. One of the most welcoming people I met was Allen Rude, who was a board member in Hamburg and the president of the Sussex County School Boards Association. Sussex County, located in the northwest corner of the state, is rural with farmland, mountains and forests. It is very picturesque.
Allen grew up in Sussex County and knew it well. Allen was a heavy-set man with a salt and pepper beard. He was smart, astute and gregarious. He shouted Sussex County. You could picture yourself in a rocking chair next to him as he spun tales of the county he loved. He used to say pridefully that until recently that there were more cows in Sussex County then people. When he called me on the phone or we were at a meeting, he would call me “Laddy” – an old Scottish term. Obviously, I was much younger back then.
While Allen was gregarious and fun loving, he was dead serious about public education. As we worked together on putting programs together, we began chatting about education policy in New Jersey. Allen was smart, and it helped me to understand state education policy better by talking with him about its direct effect on school districts. We both felt that if we had a magic wand, we could create policies that were better than most governors. At the beginning of those conversations, he would always say, “Now Ray I am going to get on my soapbox now.” I learned from Allen that while we work in education, it is not something that is just a job but something we need to be passionate about. That it is okay to have strong convictions.
Allen also had a knack for creating a good county association that brought people together. It was about building a group where everyone was welcome and could share ideas. Back in those days, county school board meetings were more formal even in rural Sussex County. Ties and jackets were the norm for men and the women dressed more formally as well. Allen then created a meeting that was called “Dress Down and Mingle Around.” It was a meeting with casual attire. No ties were allowed. Now, I always wore a tie to a county meeting (still do.). At this meeting, I wore an old ugly tie and told Allen that to open the meeting, I would let him cut it in half to signal to the crowd that we were serious about dressing down. This would be the opening of the meeting. Allen was ecstatic about the idea. It was a smash with the audience. I left the cut-up tie at the meeting.
He also was a proponent of the “WAM” method for leading a meeting. It was an acronym for Walk Around and Mingle. It was all about building relationships and welcoming everyone. It was and still is a very effective method of leadership.
Once, when we were sending an invitation to a state senator from Sussex County, I showed it to Allen and he had a major change. The letter was from him, so I had his name at the end. “No,” he said. “Senator Littell and I grew up together. I will sign it with my nickname as a kid.” I wish I could recall the name, but it only meant something to the two of them. His point was that it is about relationships. The senator came to our meeting.
Unfortunately, after Allen left the board, his health deteriorated, and he suffered from Alzheimer’s. I remember calling him after he had left and realized he did not know who I was. It hurt that I had lost a friend.
Even though I worked with Allen for a short time his lessons have stayed with me. It is about building relationships. It is also important to be passionate about public education. It is also okay to get on a “soapbox” now and then to remind you what is important.
At his funeral, I saw his wife. She looked at me and her eyes grew. She said, “Ray all these years we had this cut up tie and Allen refused to let me throw it out!” I nearly lost it.