Board of Education members dedicate themselves to service to the community, students, and staff members of the school district when they decide to run for the elected position. Once elected, they spend countless hours training for their role and how to be effective in their position.
CUSD #205 Board Member, Pamella Bess-Tabb was elected in April 2021 and, since that time, has been taking part in additional opportunities to advocate for public education.
In March of 2023, Member Bess-Tabb attended the COSSBA (Consortium of State School Boards Associations) National Conference in Tampa, Florida. COSSBA is a non-partisan, national alliance dedicated to sharing resources and information to support, promote, and strengthen state school board associations as they serve their local school districts and board members.
Next up, member Bess-Tabb will travel to Washington D.C. to attend the COSSBA Federal Advocacy conference where she will join other school board members and legislators to advocate for public education on Capitol Hill.
According to Member Bess-Tabb, “A combination of my Social Worker background and my role as a board member work is how I can work more effectively for the District as a whole.” She believes that in order to make the changes necessary in public education you have to be willing to go out and have the conversations. The COSSBA organization will allow for new opportunities to have conversations that didn’t exist previously at the national level.
At the state level, Board members are part of IASB (Illinois Association of School Boards) which allows conversations and advocacy efforts to occur throughout the state and at the Joint Annual Conference that is held in Chicago every November.
While topics such as school bullying and security are similar at both the state and national level, COSSBA allows more conversations to be held. According to Bess-Tabb, “The difference is you have board members from across the United States and Board Members really get to collaborate with each other and have conversations, which allows for good feedback. And as we head into many local topics and issues this allows me to see if we are meeting the minimum standards or are we exceeding them and bring new ideas back to the school district.”
Member Bess-Tabb looks forward to the opportunity to step outside the local scene and says it is important to see what others are doing in order to truly improve what we are doing in Galesburg. She will join 12 other Illinois School Board Members traveling to Washington D.C. for the conference and we look forward to hearing about her advocating efforts on her trip at an upcoming CUSD #205 Board of Education meeting.
