(49 Questions to Ask Your Board)
Scenario: Bernie and Maria were discussing remarks made about the swimming pool during the public comment period at the Coalville board meeting. An elderly man had accused the board of reneging on an implied promise made during the recent bond campaign: “You folks need to understand that we paid for these facilities, and we expect them to be made available for our use.” “We need assurance that the swimming pool is accessible to retirees and others whose votes we need,” said Bernie. Maria suggested checking with the superintendent before taking a position. She pointed out that weekday swim team workouts make it hard to accommodate the occasional community swimmer, and that opening the facility on weekends would cost money that might impact the academic program. She added that this kind of decision has been delegated by the board to the superintendent, who supports the high school’s restricted-use policy. Bernie responded: “This is exactly the kind of issue voters expect the board to handle. We are elected to be the community’s voice.”
This board is wrestling with a question that confronts many boards: How much direction should the board of directors give to the superintendent and staff, not just for use of district facilities but in other areas of operations as well? Should a given decision be made by the superintendent or by the board, balancing different interests in the process? And how should such guidance be given so that it can be clearly understood and successfully executed without creating more problems than it solves?
Directing the work is the purpose of policy. With both strategic (board directed) features and operational (superintendent directed) features, all district work is guided by policy.
Perhaps 90% of all policies are routine operating policies, policies needed to enable the system to cope with changes in the environment. These policies may be driven by events that lead to unfavorable publicity or demonstrate systems failures, new technologies, changing demographic patterns, budget needs, and other factors. Some originate in the superintendent’s office. Some bubble up through the organization.
― Don McAdams1
Boards give direction and guidance at two levels, strategic (e.g., providing long-term vision and values) and operational (guiding more routine day-to-day work.) Operational policy guides three entities:
- Individual board members, via written expectations for boardsmanship;
- The board itself, via written expectations for governance; and
- The district, via written expectations for management and instruction throughout the district.
Operational Guidance is an area of responsibility by which the board directs the work of the district. Most policies at the local level (those bulging 3-ring binders containing hundreds of pages of instructions) are written by management to direct staff and students. In addition to policies that guide district staff and students, board policies also provide operational guidance for board work, and for individual board members as well. These operational governance and boardsmanship policies serve an important purpose in that they help the board structure its work.
The board gives management guidance in meetings (when the board is present) by setting policies to be implemented at all times, including between meetings (when the board is not present) by full-time managers and instructional leaders, professionals who are likely to be in the best position to make timely and prudent operational decisions. The risks of overprescribing its direction of staff work can be appreciated via an automobile metaphor: while the board rightfully decides where the car should be going, it is the superintendent’s job to steer, and the superintendent cannot effectively steer with too many hands on the wheel.
Full-time staff are better suited to steer, but through its policymaking function the board keeps the community in overall control when it states the board’s (the community’s) expectations. Carefully developing such guidance, boards can successfully thread the needle and stay within self-defined lines somewhere between micromanager and rubberstamp. Policymaking should always consider recommendations from the superintendent, describing the practical impact of any board policy proposals and providing recommendations for their formulation.
Operational Guidance.
[Defining question: How does the board guide day-to-day operations?]
Operations are the day-to-day business on which the public’s money is spent, so the board has a fiduciary duty to constituents to oversee such work. In fulfilling this duty, it tries not to unduly inhibit or overprescribe operational decision-making that is more likely than not better done by those who are on the scene where the action occurs. Providing such guidance via (broadly defined) policy enables the board (from a distance) to guide the work of the district, that of the board itself in its governance role, and that of its individual members in their boardsmanship role.
A significant and growing body of research shows the harm to student learning that can result from mismanagement of board process or inability of the board to respond to dysfunctional boardsmanship behaviors. Characteristics of governance and boardsmanship have been linked by such research to the bottom-line of student outcomes as reflected in test scores. Beyond avoiding the negative, there are also research-backed positive board (and board member) behaviors that can and should be guided by policy.
The effective board gives boardsmanship guidance to board members, provides governance guidance to itself, and district guidance to its superintendent.
Boardsmanship Guidance, Governance Guidance, and District Guidance are three components of operational guidance.
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.
ALSO: Please feel free to register in order to receive future posts like this one as soon as they are published.
Excerpt from:
- A Framework for School Governance (2017), Rick Maloney
References:
- 1What School Boards Can Do (2006) Don McAdams
Next: Question #24 – Does Your Board Give Its Members Boardsmanship Guidance?