The April issue is special for two reasons. First, it’s our Magna Awards issue and we get to highlight the good work being done by board members and their staff. NSBA’s Magna Awards have been recognizing innovative school district programs for almost 30 years. Our winning programs for 2024—the Grand Prize Award winners and the Silver Award winners—represent the enormous efforts of school leaders and district staff to reinvent and rethink education for their students, staff, and communities.

The three Grand Prize winners and 15 Silver Award winners tell the stories of school leaders who found creative solutions to district challenges. They help students with career pathways and new and upgraded facilities. They reach out to incarcerated students and first offenders to give them second chances to get their lives on track. They give students the opportunity to express their authentic voice in district decision-making and connect to their school community, teachers, and others. We hope the stories in our pages will give you the information and ideas to use in your own districts. And because these stories are more complex than can be expressed in 500 words, we put the contact information for each winning program so you can learn more about them.

We also want to thank and recognize our Magna judges, who had the hard job of choosing only 18 out of so many exemplary entries.

The Magna Awards were established almost three decades ago because there was no other program that honored the accomplishments of schools and the hard work of their governance team. If we’d been able to see the future back then, we would have known that nearly 30 years later, telling the positive stories about public schools is even more crucial now.

The second reason this issue is special is because it’s our annual conference issue. School board members and school leaders will be gathering in New Orleans from April 6 to 8. Representatives from the three Grand Prize-winning districts will speak at a special Master Class session, and the winners will be honored.

We’d love to feature your programs here next year. More information about the Magna Awards is available at https://nsba.org/ASBJ/Magna-Awards.

Also in this issue, our State Association Membership Spotlight showcases our members and their initiatives and efforts for their school board members. In this issue, we are featuring the Maine School Boards Association with an article by Executive Director Steven Bailey and Maine board member Jim Moulton. Susan Gentz writes about what board members need to know about the upcoming federal funding fiscal cliff. (See also NSBA’s Center for Public Education’s report on the same topic.)

Sonja H. Trainor, NSBA's managing director of school law and legal programming, has written “Student Gender Identity and the Courts.” The article discusses how the lack of legal guidance from the courts has left school districts uncertain about how to handle confusion over student bathroom use at schools.

I hope you are attending our annual conference so you can hear more about the Magna Award winners and take advantage of connecting with your peers from across the country.