During the Monday, September 16, 2024, DeSoto Independent School District board meeting, trustees highlighted and discussed their recent training at the Accelerated Board Capacity, or ABC, Institute held at Harvard University this summer.
In July 2024, the DeSoto ISD Board of Trustees was invited by Great City Schools to attend the training at the prestigious institution in Boston, Massachusetts.
DeSoto ISD Board President Chasiti McKissic called the training, “intensive yet engaging,” citing it as “one of the best learning experiences she has ever had in [her ] entire life.”
The experience included:
- Roles and responsibilities of a school board;
- Politics of Leading Change;
- Team exercises;
- Tech exercises; and
- Review and analysis of real-world situations.
McKissic said, “The work helped us analyze the way we approach situations and our strengths and weaknesses as board members and be able to rally around each other to move this work forward.”
During the meeting, Dr. John J.H. Kim, the group’s training facilitator, joined the meeting to offer additional perspectives on the training experience and extend a note of congratulations for the Board’s completion of the experience.
Kim noted the significance of the experience adding that the ABC Institute was a national program in which the DeSoto ISD School Board, the only team from Texas, was joined by teams from Chicago Public Schools, Philadelphia, Little Rock and St. Louis among others.
“This was a national program that brings together trustees and board members along with superintendents to tackle what is really, I believe, the most important work in any community which is about creating the conditions for excellence in schools which affect all community members whether you are a parent or family with a child within the schools or you’re a citizen within the district,” said Kim. “I think schools are such an important element within the community.”
Kim noted the DeSoto ISD board’s collaboration and contribution, as well as, their focus, dedication, and hard work in the program and their intent to apply what they learned to their work in the DeSoto and Glenn Heights school communities.