Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Friday, January 09, 2009

School board members Becky Sagan, John Price, Melissa Bacon and Kirk Tinsley take the oath of office, as administered by board attorney Brenda Allen. (Photo: Nema Brewer-Candy)

The kids at Deep Springs Elementary are accustomed to seeing parent volunteer Kirk Tinsley around school. But Friday they saw him in a new light: as a member of the Fayette County Board of Education. 

“It’s like coming home,” said Tinsley, who chose Deep Springs as the site for his swearing-in ceremony. “Just looking around this room gives me inspiration to be a board member.” 

Chairwoman Becky Sagan, vice chairman John Price and member Melissa Bacon, who were all re-elected in November, took the oath of office along with Tinsley, who was appointed to fill Larry Conner’s seat. Conner, the former chairman, left in August for a job in Georgia. 

Superintendent Stu Silberman began holding the board members’ swearing-in ceremonies at a school when he joined the district in 2004. The last one was at Cassidy Elementary, where board member Amanda Ferguson’s children attended; the previous event was at Millcreek Elementary, where Sagan once taught. Tinsley’s daughter attended Deep Springs for six years, and he has been active on campus, even directing traffic in front of the school every morning. 

“It gives us a chance to be with the kids,” Bacon said of the on-site ceremonies. “It’s a nice learning experience to find out who the board really is.” 

And so the third-, fourth- and fifth-graders gathered in the gym at Deep Springs to hear from their school board members – armed with questions they wrote. 

“Our board members’ main job is to take care of you,” Silberman explained before introducing the group. 

The kids’ topics ranged from Atyiana Wilson’s “What do you do as a school board member?” to Kaitlyn Roark’s “What’s the hardest part of your job?” and Madisen Reynolds’ “If there was something wrong in one of your schools, what would you do?” 

The board members gamely passed a microphone down the row in turn. 

“We don’t run the schools or tell the superintendent how to do his job. We look at the big picture and make sure students have what they need to be successful,” Sagan told the kids. 

“The hardest part of our job is how to spend the dollars” to benefit students the most, Price added. 

And if there was talk of problems at a certain school, Price said he’d listen to the concerns and then be sure to check with the superintendent to find out what was really going on. 

Bacon, who was raised in Lexington and who has two children attending Fayette County schools, said board members want to provide the best education possible for every student in the district. “It’s very important to me that you all have a great place to go to school,” she said. 

Tinsley, who lives a stone’s throw from Deep Springs, echoed that sentiment. “When you grow up, you never want to forget your neighborhood school,” he said. “That’s why I serve.”  

Did you know?

January is School Board Recognition Month. Watch for profiles of each of our five board members in the features section of the Fayette County Public Schools home page.