This is how I spend my spring break: watching the ESD 113 Board eat lunch. Oh, and discuss important business, including two new agenda items addressing the Olympia School District's inability to fill its District 2 seat, vacated when Rich Nafziger abruptly resigned.

After all the experience watching the Olympia School Board go through 2007 Election II: Son of Rancor, it's somewhat surprising to see people having reasonable, non-fractious discussions of ongoing issues. (It's also good for one's perspective to remember that the Olympia School District is only one of many in the region--at present, our problems pale in comparison to the struggles of North Thurston, the district that's praying its scaled-back levy passes in May.)

The tables are arranged in a horseshoe facing a projector screen, and observers--Olympian reporter Venice Buhain, a teacher from McClane Elementary, myself, and a few ESD staffers, and Marilee Scarbrough, Policy and Legal Services director for the WSSDA--sit in a horseshoe outside the horseshoe. Vice Chair John Gott says that this is because the Board wasn't expecting visitors, and jokes, "We can put your chairs in the center if you like."

The initial informal debate: whether Kansas won, or Memphis lost, the national championship. That settled, the meeting commences at 12:09.

Here is the City of Olympia's online page for getting involved via the advisory board process--

To me this all seems overly bureaucratic (and if understand all the info about this process correctly, with the majority of the board posts being appointed via selection process by Council, rather prone to nepotism), but that is just me:..

...I took one look at the application process and thought of other ways of being during my time on Earth.

But I did download all the forms and looked at all the suggested reading on the site and was wondering what my fellow OlyBloggers think of this whole process as described (perhaps maybe share stories about past or current volunteerism "with/for/or near" the City of Olympia)--

--I'm especially interested in hearing about ideas for events or collaborations that have stalled-out or never started because of anticipated interaction with City governance.