The Auburn Enlarged City School District Board of Education wishes to start the New Year with an overview of our mission and a glimpse of the future we see for our district.

The mission of the school board is simple: To provide the best education possible to all students who come through our doors. It is no small task to educate a wide variety of students with differing learning styles, and to do so at a cost affordable to the community.

We also look for ways to make use of the tools and investments that have already been made over the years. We continue to encourage our teaching staff, empowering them to help us make innovative changes in our curriculum because we all want to improve our drop-out rates, graduation rates and the percentage of students who are successful when they leave high school.

The board also focuses on respect and integrity. We strive for a respectful, team-oriented atmosphere where collaboration breeds good ideas. This has helped us meet our goals and model the behavior we expect from our administrators, teachers, staff and students. Do we disagree with each other? Yes, of course we disagree. Yet, it is how we disagree that defines us. We are respectful of each other's positions, and when the decisions are made, they are made as a board and we support them.

We continue to look for ways to improve our financial situation. In the recent past, you recall that the district was in financial trouble and was forced to lay off teachers and staff in order to balance the books and stabilize the district. Since then, we have worked together to put a strong administrative team in place to make sure that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. We are moving forward with a plan to use our own well to provide energy to East Middle School. We continue to look at excess property and how to put that land back on the tax roll.

Each year, we scrutinize our health insurance benefits to make sure we are striking a balance of good health coverage for the lowest price possible. We research grants. We continue to work with our local and state governments to see that education is in the forefront of their minds.

The topic of tax increases in the county has surfaced as a school matter. We will continue to monitor spending. Last year we presented you with a spending plan that was less than the previous year. We will continue to scrutinize the plans and make sure they are prudent and affordable to the community. You have entrusted us with the most important asset a community can have, its children. We do not take that responsibility lightly. Our promise to you is to continuously improve the services we deliver to our children, our future.

Michael J. Stearns

Auburn

Stearns is president of the Auburn Enlarged City School District Board of Education.