Question #40 – Does Your Board Monitor District Performance?

Rick Maloney

(49 Questions to Ask Your Board)

The only way a board can responsibly do its job without meddling is by monitoring very well…The best boards keep their noses in the business and their fingers out.

– Jim Brown1

The board meets its obligation to account for district success when it monitors district performance in order to hold the superintendent accountable for managing the district, assuring reasonable progress toward achievement of district goals and complying with expectations about how those goals are pursued.

Scenario: Randy is a manager for a major technology company. After he joined the school board his penetrating questions tested the ability of staff briefers. He could generate questions more quickly than the staff could respond. Each new answer was met with anywhere from two to ten new questions, each of which demanded additional time to develop a response. Costs escalated as staff scrambled to provide more and more data. It fell on the board chair to confront Randy and explain that increasing the amount of information (say, from 80% of what can be known to 90%) can cost significantly more without increasing the quality of the decisions being made.

Randy’s behavior shows a desire to keep up with what is going on in the schools, but it is not monitoring, because his questions are based on curiosity rather than previously-stated board expectations.

In their attempt to focus on student achievement, boards often struggle with the need to clarify board and superintendent work.

“We were setting the agenda, and we were talking about the data retreat and how much to go into it, and the superintendent’s response was, ‘That is micromanaging,’” said the member. “It used to be considered that, but now it’s more about understanding. We need to find out where these gaps are and what we need to do to improve. We look at the overall picture, and once we see the overall picture, we need to talk to them and say, ‘How are you going to improve this?’ It’s up to them to look in much more detail. The integrity of that process gives me the assurance as a board member that we are working hard as a district to improve achievement.” By the time they got to the retreat, however, the superintendent had changed his mind.

― Mary Dellagardelle2

Certainly, the board should receive and consider superintendent input, but it is not the superintendent’s place to determine the board’s or the community’s expectations nor draw their conclusions for them. The superintendent’s appropriate role is to consider the board’s expectations when deciding what data to collect and report. Such data must enable the board to decide if expected outcomes are achieved or reasonable progress is being made, and to decide if community values are being upheld.

Once criteria for successful performance have been clearly spelled out, the board can perform its duty, as Jim Brown puts it, of keeping its “nose in the business.” There are various approaches the board can take, including obtaining internal monitoring data from the staff; receiving expert reports from an external source, such as state test scores or a state or locally contracted auditor or consultant; or performing direct inspection or observation by the board itself.

The effective board monitors pre-established expectations to see that achievement and instruction goals are met, and to see that law and policy values are being complied with. This requires data on goal achievement and policy compliance so the board can evaluate district success. While monitoring for results, the board learns about the staff’s instructional improvement efforts, so it can cite examples of staff work that leads to improved student learning. It tracks trends in the data and is willing to discuss both positive and negative data.

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Next: Question #41 Does Your Board Respond to District Monitoring?