(49 Questions to Ask Your Board)
…reforms that seek greater transparency are increasingly on the rise…information empowers citizens to hold public officials accountable…disclosure of information about government institutions, policies, and programs empowers citizens to hold officials responsible for their spending and performance…leading, eventually, to more accountable, responsive, and effective governance.
– Kosack and Fung1
The importance of transparency in the governance of public schools cannot be ignored and must therefore be a non-negotiable value in assuring accountability to the school community.
The following … can be important first steps in addressing … local control and transparency:
- Before efforts, ideas, issues, policies, and decisions can be known, the team must be knowable. Minimize your position/authoritative power and focus on relationship building. The goal of building relationships is to build trust and a sense of community.
- Share openly about educational challenges or necessary changes and also be clear about the team’s ideas, biases, values-influenced decisions, and potential solutions. Acknowledging these things serves as a means to model strength and supports a healthy culture of change. The team should also be clear and consistent about how they are addressing these issues but remain open to other views.
- When the team makes a mistake or discovers a gap, acknowledge it. Don’t miss the opportunity to transparently acknowledge your own shortcomings as a means of demonstrating strength.
- The team should consider the role of social media. If it has a role in your communications and marketing efforts, anticipate the immediacy of social media and be prepared to start, participate, and conclude conversation in real time.
These transparency actions all serve to strengthen trust in your team’s ability to lead the district on behalf of what’s best for teaching and learning and improve perceptions of local control. – Balch and Adamson2
Board-superintendent team relationships, and board member-board member team relationships, depend on a foundation of trust built on transparency and a sense of partnership between board and community.
Scenario: The board meeting began with the board chair publicly reviewing the agenda, identifying the purpose of each agenda item, relevant policies, how the agenda item is related to those policies, areas in which district performance in terms of student outcomes will be monitored, and board policies that will be reviewed during the meeting.
By virtue of its relationship with the superintendent, the board is in position to be keeper of the culture for a school district. An example of the need for a trusting relationship involves superintendent feedback to the board that (without such a relationship) might be negatively received:
Scenario: The superintendent, in her weekly update, reminded the board that at its previous board meeting it had violated its own policy for board decision-making. “You will recall that board policy requires two readings of a motion before taking final action. In addition, you have stated in policy that all important decisions on curriculum are to be ‘data-driven,’ yet you voted, after one reading of a motion, to approve a math curriculum, and did that without reviewing the research available on all alternatives.“ When asked why she was criticizing the board, she reminded them, “Your governing policy states that I am expected to ’…advise the Board if in the Superintendent’s opinion, the Board is not in compliance with its own policies.’ I am committed to supporting the board’s policies.”
Obviously, the superintendent needs to be sure of how gracefully the board will accept negative feedback. We can expect a superintendent to keep sensitivity in mind when delivering a critique to her boss, but shame on a board that doesn’t invite and welcome such feedback – that board resembles an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand. A board that can handle criticism via email or in a private setting is good. A board with the courage and grace to accept such feedback in open public meetings is exceptional. With a foundation of transparency, the board can build a powerful connection with its community and give authentic voice to the values such a connection reveals.
The effective board values internal transparency among board members and between board and superintendent as a way to create trust within the district. External transparency in the conduct of public meetings, access to public records, and the content of public communications builds and sustains trust throughout the community. As a byproduct of that trust, the board establishes a solid basis for formulating and giving voice to community values, internally through its policy guidance and externally through advocacy on behalf of students.
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
Additional References:
- 1Does Transparency Improve Governance? Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 17, 2014 Stephen Kosack, and Archon Fung
- 2Building Great School Board-Superintendent Teams: A Systematic Approach to Balancing Roles and Responsibilities (2017), Bradley Balch and Michael T. Adamson
Next: Question #20 – Does Your Board Connect with the Community to Learn its Values?