(49 Questions to Ask Your Board)
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” ― Thomas Paine
Paine offered the above advice to America’s Founding Fathers, who were debating how best to limit the power of government.
Considering Paine’s advice as it applies to the board member role:
If board and board member performance were evaluated and made public, many board members might be a bit more restrained in their actions.
― Thomas Glass1
In order to be trusted, individual board members must also be held accountable for their performance, and the board should regularly provide such an opportunity.
Scenario: Jessica ran for office in the wake of an uproar about a breach of public trust that had led to the superintendent’s departure. Riding a wave of public dissatisfaction and a “throw the bums out” sentiment, she unseated a dedicated and highly respected board member. She “rode in on a high horse” of self-righteous zeal, attacking the rest of the board first for lack of openness and transparency, then for failing to hold the new superintendent accountable for his work. In the course of her “open government” campaign she alienated colleagues, violated the confidentiality of executive session discussions, and made arguably libelous accusations against the superintendent and selected staff members. Concluding that her behavior created a negative climate that was harming the district, the board voted to publicly censure her. She continued to attack the board and some district administrators but made no progress in her quest to increase transparency and accountability. Finally, as her first term neared an end, she resigned. Through her hostile approach she had turned essentially positive values (transparency and accountability) into a negative, alienating her colleagues, most of the staff, and a large part of the community, uniting them against her and invalidating her self-styled image as champion of reform.
Boardsmanship is not just about getting along with colleagues. It is also about individual members contributing to the board’s overall effectiveness as a collective governing body. Extending its accountability function to the individual board member, the effective board ensures that each of its members has regular opportunities to answer for their individual contribution (positive or negative) to overall board effectiveness. The goal is to demonstrate a pattern of behavior that the public has every right to expect of its representatives.
Scenario: Ben was a frequent critic of the superintendent, blaming him for lack of academic progress in test scores, disciplinary matters involving teachers, anything that was a source of embarrassment. After he was elected Vice President, he stepped up his public criticism. When board members subsequently voted to replace him as Vice President he sued, claiming the board stifled his 1st Amendment right of free expression. The case went all the way to the Court of Appeals, which found that his right to free expression of opinion did not shield him from the political consequence of being voted out of a board leadership position.
In the above case, the court agreed that the First Amendment protects the right to “discordant speech” but asserted it doesn’t “immunize him from the political fallout of what he says.”
The importance of this task. Most school board members are elected and are therefore formally held accountable only in the voting booth at the end of each term. However, the board has other options. For example, performance criteria that can be used for assessment of individual board member performance are offered by the Washington State School Directors’ Association:
Contributing to thoughtful governance discussions and decisions by being well informed, open minded, and deliberative.
- Articulating and modeling appropriate school director roles and responsibilities.
- Listening carefully and with an open mind.
- Maintaining civility and treating all people with respect and dignity.
- Maintaining confidentiality of appropriate matters.2
Between elections, the board can and should arrange a process for assuring boardsmanship accountability. It can present its members with an opportunity to publicly commit to expectations about boardsmanship. Even in cases where such commitment is withheld, the board retains the right and responsibility to declare these expectations of its members. It can then arrange for colleague-delivered feedback based on those expectations.
If informal boardsmanship accountability fails and the dysfunctional behaviors of a single board member threaten the effectiveness of the whole board, what then? Although the board may lack authority to take the most drastic measures such as removal from office, there are other responses available. Board members do not enjoy unrestricted right to hold a board position such as president or vice president, and a majority vote could be taken to remove from such office, or from any board committee, a member who will not self-regulate. Similarly, when the board’s desire for consensus or unanimity puts a single board member in position to hold up progress, the board majority can and should consider abandoning the ideal of consensus and being willing to the take a vote, impose majority rule, and move on.
The effective board sets expectations for its members’ individual boardsmanship behaviors. It monitors board member behavior to assure alignment with expectations. It responds to such monitoring by noting areas of alignment and areas needing improvement, reviewing/updating its expectations, and reiterating them to support consistent future performance.
Board Member Accountability) consists of 3 elements: Setting Expectations for Board Member Performance; Monitoring Board Member Performance; and Responding to Board Member Monitoring.
NOTE: Please feel free to comment. 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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Excerpt from:
- A Framework for School Governance (2017), Rick Maloney
References;
- 1Elected Versus Appointed Boards, The Future of School Board Governance (2008) Thomas Glass
- 2School Board Standards (2022) Washington State School Directors’ Association
Next: Question #47 – Does Your Board Set Criteria for Measuring Board Member Success?