An ovation for the Arlington school board

Arlington school district residents have powerful reasons to be proud of the seven people on their school board. They should re-elect the three incumbents running for new three-year terms.

There’s good reason to believe those residents recognize the board’s accomplishments and trust its members.

Last May, 70 percent of district voters approved a $663.1 million bond program drawn up with the help of volunteers and submitted to voters by the board.

That’s a compelling sign of support, made even more poignant because of years of painstaking effort by these trustees to determine what improvements the district must make to offer quality public education for its more than 64,000 students — and designing a comprehensive approach for making it all happen.

The $663.1 million is a lot of money, but it’s only one part of the bigger picture the board has drawn. The Strategic Plan, itself the product not only of endless hours of board effort but also of many meetings with residents, teachers and students, is available on the district’s website.

The real question now is what the board will do for an encore. The Strategic Plan was designed as a three-year effort, and 2015 is its third year.

But the transition the board has made is unlikely to slip away.

As a part of that transition, every recommendation the staff makes to the board comes with a statement of how it would advance specific goals of the Strategic Plan. That’s good discipline for any public body.

Superintendent Marcelo Cavazos, who has proved to be an impressive asset to the board’s work since he was named to the top administrative post in late 2012, is evaluated annually on metrics developed to measure progress toward the plan’s goals.

The board gets quarterly progress reports, also available online.

It all amounts to a disciplined, businesslike approach to running a public school district.

The Star-Telegram Editorial Board recommends voting for Gloria Peña in Place 1, Peter Baron in Place 2 and Aaron Reich in Place 3 on the Arlington school board.

This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 9:58 PM with the headline "An ovation for the Arlington school board."