Members of the Fairfield School Board and the district’s Superintendent have been honored with 2019-20 Better Boardmanship Awards by the Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB).

The IASB annual awards are given to individuals who dedicate time and effort to learning, advocacy, leadership, and service projects to expand their knowledge and skills for better governance. Fairfield’s Debi Plum and Tim Bower were among 73 school board members from 39 K-12 school boards across the state selected for Individual Achievement Awards.

Fairfield Superintendent Dr. Laurie Noll is one of only seven superintendents in the state to receive the Award of Honor. She says the selections recognize their commitment to the students, parents, staff, and teachers of Fairfield schools. She says COVID-19 has certainly made the job of superintendents and school boards more challenging, “It has been difficult to try to navigate what the school board feels is the best and what educationally we were trying to provide students and navigating the desires and needs of all community members is definitely a struggle.”

Noll says balancing student learning between in-person, online and hybrid models hasn’t been easy and she couldn’t have done it without the cooperation and efforts of the school board.  Jesse Howard of the New London School Board also was recognized with an IASB Individual Achievement Award.