(September 5, 2014)

Alumna receives Master Trustee status

SHREVEPORT, LA — Alumna and Marshall, Texas, ISD trustee Helen Warwick '91 '94 has earned the designation of Master Trustee upon completion of Leadership TASB, a program sponsored by the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).

Helen Warwick
Robert Duron, Assistant Executive Director for Governance Services at the Texas Association of School Boards presents Helen Warwick with her LTASB certificate.

"The program is a step beyond the required continuing education credits we have to fulfill every year (as trustees)," said Warwick. "It was an honor to be one of the 35 selected out of about 150 applicants."

The 2014 Leadership TASB class participants represented Texas school districts of all sizes and economic level. The year-long program consisted of five sessions hosted across the state of Texas for the purpose of educating participants about differences between school districts and how they deal with change. Participants who completed all required elements of the study program earned Master Trustee status, the highest designation recognized by TASB.

"I was a little intimidated at the first sessions," said Warwick. "I looked around the room and there was one participant who had authored a book and another from Houston, one of the largest school districts in the nation. But in the end we all became very close from our experiences together."

Helen Warwick
Helen Warwick and other LTASB participants listen to a presentation during a LTASB session.

Later this month, Warwick will present a team project at the annual Texas Association of School Boards Convention in Dallas following year-long research. Leadership participants chose topics related to public school boards facing change and selected narrowed research fields for in-depth study. Their research focused on topics that included strategies to deal with school choice, creating advocacy programs that work, meeting the educational needs of all children, loss of local control, and embracing changing culture.

Warwick, a Shreveport native, has been a Marshall ISD school board trustee since 2005, was elected trustee secretary in 2008, and later elected trustee president in 2010. She earned her BS in elementary education in 1991 and MA in education in 1994 from Centenary College. Warwick is married to her supportive husband Mike, an attorney in Marshall, and has two children, Amanda and Michael.