Every school board member should be at least familiar with the New York State Constitution, the state Education Law, and the city charter or county laws of his or her own locality. For instance, the local government budget process, even though it may not always directly bear on the schools, should be no mystery to the school board member. The structure of the local police department, the responsibilities of the local health agencies, the planning and zoning and building code enforcement agencies should all be familiar to those who must plan school capacity for the future. The second area for research is the real mechanics of government. The third area of research for school board members is current events.
Politicians keep current through clipping services.
Staffers at the State Legislature go through all the state's newspapers early every morning, select articles, photocopy them, and distribute packages of them to their bosses. Few school board members could afford a clipping service. Local newspapers are obviously a help, but there is a new Internet website that gives you a daily briefing on state politics and links to major news sources that could be your best resource for a review, each morning, of what's going on in New York. Despite his Republican leanings, Chichester has a remarkably independent viewpoint and often criticizes members of his own party. His site contains a sort of electronic column he writes himself, but also has free links to a daily menu of political news stories from all the major newspapers, so even though Chichester's own quite insightful commentary tends to the conservative, his site is generally a valuable non-partisan resource.