Background Information

TLI Inc. was founded in 2005 by public school administrators who collectively have nearly fifty years experience in the public school systems of New York State. During our careers we have served the children of this state in school districts ranging from very small to quite large in rural, suburban and small city locations.

 

We have seen state standards and expectations for students increase dramatically and fortunately seen students respond positively. We have seen the costs of education sky rocket. We have seen communities demanding more and more of school districts and its personnel. Unfortunately we have also seen less and less involvement and responsibility taken by parents. We have seen moral and ethical standards decline. We have seen more and more school boards lose sight of the reason they were created. We have seen more and more school board members struggle to take over responsibilities which are not theirs to take.

 

TLI was created to help address many of these areas. At the present time most of our efforts are being put into the last item mentioned, that being the observation that more and more school boards and their members have lost sight of the reason they were created and elected.

 

There are just over 700 school boards in New York State. One edition of the publication “Superintendent’s Snapshot V” by the New York State Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS) indicated that nearly 125 school districts have dysfunctional and ineffective boards, according to their superintendents.

 

One school superintendent was told to be aware of the number of references to God he made in his public presentations as people might be offended.

 

At the 2004 New York State School Boards Association Annual Convention a resolution was overwhelmingly passed that encouraged school boards to ensure the importance and discussion of tolerance of respecting others who are unique and different because of racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, disability and religiously related reasons as part of the curriculum .

 

Recently the Comptroller of New York State has been auditing numerous school districts within the State. Unfortunately he has determined that several school boards have completely failed in their obligation to appropriately monitor the fiscal affairs of their school district.

 

In recent school board elections across 139 districts in Western New York nearly 50% of the districts had only one candidate running for each vacant seat.

 

We believe it is time to encourage community members to stand up against this decline in public service, ethics, morals and financial impropriety. We believe there are several ways to do this. These include:

 

  • Increase the awareness of what is happening with local Boards of Education and school districts and help constituents learn the areas for which Boards are responsible.

 

  • Increase the number of quality candidates that choose to run for a seat on their local school board who are committed to family values based on a traditional Judeo-Christian belief system.