boards association:

·          Sharing information between board members such as curriculum, working with business and industry, changing technology, and unique experiences;

·          Providing opportunities for board members to share their challenges and decision making, and to gain information through discussions on matters of local concern;

·          Communicating at a statewide level with legislators, the state VTAE board, the state director, and business and industrial organizations; and

·          Providing needed education and assistance to individual board members about their role as part of a local governing body and state education system.

Eugene Lehrmann, VTAE state director from 1971-79, attended the July meeting and remembers it well.  Local board members asked him how the state board felt about an association.  He said, “I encouraged them.”  He remembers there was considerable debate about the form the organization should take.  Should it include district directors, now college presidents, and others?  Should it be a part of WASB, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards?  Should it be an organization for local VTAE board members only?  Director Lehrmann said he “encouraged a separate boards organization with the district directors attending to help and to give advice, but not to do the thinking for board members.”8