(Questions to Ask Your Board)
On the most basic level, members have to keep up with continually changing state and federal mandates and laws, something that district staffers generally help with. They also need to keep up with promising initiatives to raise student achievement in and outside their district as well as continually evolving systems for monitoring data and engaging the community in school improvement. New board members especially need training in their roles and responsibilities and in laws pertaining to ethics and conflicts of interest. The most advanced boards work on operating protocols, handbooks documenting their operations, and board self-evaluations. – Nancy Walser1
Board effort in carrying out the duties inherent in the board role is essential to successful governance performance. Just as a student who is capable of growth actually achieves it through personal effort, a board must demonstrate a work ethic, not just as individual members but as a whole board, if it is to achieve its full governing potential. And it must develop a habit of continuous improvement:
Continuous improvement is in the first instance a habit of the mind, a way of thinking that focuses on doing whatever it is we are doing better. – NSBA2
School board members whose idea of governance is to merely preside over the district in its meetings fully expect to sit back and let the staff not only do the staff work but also to fill in the gaps whenever the board fails to do its own board work.
Scenario: Board members arrived on time and began the meeting. The superintendent presented the agenda, while staff members, as scheduled, gave detailed reports on curriculum, transportation, and student discipline. Board members asked questions to clarify what they heard, thanked the superintendent and staff for the reports, then ended the meeting. When a member of the community in attendance asked if this meeting was representative of most, she was told it was typical. No discussion of the contents of the reports had occurred, including making the effort to tie staff work to research or student outcomes data, or comparing the information with any existing standards or policy expectations. Everything was done with efficiency and courtesy. Yet no connection was apparent between agenda items and the board’s overall purpose, its long-range vision for the district, or its written policy guidance. Nor was it evident what either the purpose of the board or that long-range vision was.
If board members don’t even know with clarity what board work is, they most likely see their job as merely showing up at meetings and voting on motions that are introduced, relying on staff recommendations about those motions. The board has its own work to do. It cannot just show up and expect to govern well. They may think of everything as staff work, hoping that success will come without much effort on the part of the board. That is just wishful thinking. Its members must come to meetings prepared by studying issues beforehand, and they must be ready to discuss and debate difficult ideas. The board must create its agenda for meetings based on a more strategic board role, representing the community that both board and staff are there to serve. The board must be willing to do the work of the board, work that no one else can do.
A board that is willing to publicly focus on its own part in the school system and is confident in its ability to grow in capacity is likely to influence others in that system to do the same. The superintendent takes responsibility for her own management role as CEO, confident in and committed to her own growth and encouraging her direct reports to do the same. Others at various levels of district and school management do likewise. Teachers and support staff take responsibility for instructional work needed in the classroom, and students themselves put in the effort to grow in their learning. The ultimate effects of this trickle down from boardroom to classroom may be remote, and they may take a long time, but research has shown that what boards do positively impacts student learning because of the board’s belief in growth as exemplified through its governance efforts.
The effective board not only believes in its own capacity for growth; it actually does its own work to assure same. The board rolls up its sleeves and works. It does not rely on superintendent and staff to do what rightfully belongs to the board. Rather than simply presiding at meetings, it actively does the work of governing the district. The board is diligent about its own governance work, going beyond merely reading materials before meetings and showing up at meetings. It engages in deep discussion and deliberations about the community’s desired outcomes for students, ongoing board professional development, and development of its own perspective rather than just reacting to the ideas of the superintendent. It defines its vision of board responsibilities and fully carries out that vision.
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.
Excerpt from:
- A Framework for School Governance (2018), Rick Maloney
Additional References:
- 1The Essential School Board Book (2009), Nancy Walser
- 2The Key Work of School Boards, (2020), NSBA
NEXT: Question #7 – Does Your Board Take a Strategic Approach?
Governance will work in a system where there is actual professionalism in the administration and teaching staff. Governance is not expected to have professional expertise. And therein lies the crux of the problem. Education is not yet a profession. It is a raconteur anything goes hodge podge of alchemistic approaches to teaching and learning.
I just read an article in EdSource about the new superintendent of Fresno School District. She is on a 100 day listening and learning tour where she vows to learn the name of every student. Meanwhile 2/3 of students can’t read and 3/4 can’t do grade level math.
She is promoting a high school reading initiative called Every Student is a Reader! The high school teachers are adapting this curriculum for the elementary schools. A recipe for disaster! The superintendent should be promoting reading curriculum, aligned professional practices, and assessments based on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and writing!
The lack of professionalism is beyond imagination! It can never be fixed by well meaning governance! Just more useless Kabuki Theater!
Read The Fog of Education!
There is no doubt that governance by itself cannot fix the lack of professionalism. Governance can, however, incorporate values that promote and sustain professionalism in the board role: superintendent hiring, policymaking, goal-setting, monitoring for results, monitoring for alignment with policy values, superintendent evaluation, etc. When these board activities are in alignment with one another, great results are possible. Our local board has been governing in a coherent, aligned way for the past two decades, and has moved from what I have called a “Lake Woebegone” type district (above average in most respects) to ratings that identify us at the top 10 or 20 of 295 districts in our state, with student demographics that would otherwise predict much lower ratings.