Question #13 – Does Your Board Give Voice to the Community’s Vision for the Future?

Rick Maloney

(49 Questions to Ask Your Board)

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. ― John F. Kennedy1

The above vision statement, delivered in September 1962, galvanized and gave direction to the U.S. space program throughout the 1960s. JFK provided a strategic voice for that vision, which led ultimately to the first moon landing in 1969. Recognizing its own responsibility to provide a strategic voice empowers a school board, informed by ongoing engagement with its community, to convey the community’s long-term vision for student learning. Crafting an inspiring message, the board challenges the district to stretch toward lofty but attainable results (its vision) while promoting principles and parameters (an expression of its values) for how the district should achieve those results.

Boards should choose a destination before setting off on what might easily become aimless wandering. When we are in such a hurry to get somewhere or do something that we forget to take the time to clearly decide where we are going, we tend to get nowhere fast.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
― Lewis Carroll

Scenario: The board had a practice of identifying annual goals to guide the district for each year. Maurice, the newest member, asked how this year’s goal was related to last year. “They aren’t really related.” said Shoni. “We consider new ideas each year when setting annual goals. Last year we set goals for new athletic fields.” This year we are looking at increasing our outreach to stakeholders as we approach the election season and our renewal of the bond.”

Setting annual goals may be a bad practice in the boardroom. Boards should be in the business of providing an enduring vision whose outcomes cannot be expected in the short term, even several years after a new goal is written. Changing vision statements from year to year puts at risk any efforts by superintendent or staff that themselves require time to produce results. Staff work is inevitably impeded when the board moves the goalposts toward which their efforts are aimed.

The importance of this task. Through strategic goal-setting the board defines and clarifies the community’s vision for student learning. NSBA, in Becoming a Better Board Member2, advises that a thorough school board visioning process is deep, wide, and long:

Simply put, visioning requires the board and community to:

  • Take a deep look inside
  • Take a wide look around
  • Take a long look ahead

Desired outcomes for students include development of the full range of their individual capabilities (e.g., academic, social-emotional, moral, physical – what might be considered in 4-H parlance the dimensions of hands, head, heart, health) and achievement of a desired future toward which these capabilities are directed (e.g., college, career, citizenship, etc.)

Goals that target anything but results for students are much less relevant to our district’s bottom line.

Vision is not about what we are, but about what we want to be. Vision captures a critical dimension of dynamic systems. For school boards, it is about where we are going and what kind of school systems we are trying to create. A positive vision is future-focused and seeks to shape events rather than simply let them happen.
― Katherine Gemberling3

The effective board is dedicated to connecting with the community to understand community members’ hopes and dreams for children. It channels those hopes and dreams, using a systematic goal-setting process that focuses on students, orients on results, and takes a long-term perspective while pursuing results for students.

Vision consists of 4 elements: Goal-Setting Process; Focus on the Student; Results Orientation; and Long-Term Time Perspective.

NOTE: The opinions expressed in these blog entries are informed by references cited herein, and the experiences of the author. Your comments are welcome additions to the conversation.

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Next: Question #14 – Does Your Board Set Goals for the District?