Governing Effectively via a Framework for School Governance
(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) It would have been easy to say our personalities clash and that’s why we didn’t get along with each other, but that excuse wouldn’t hold water. We chose to devote a full weekend to settling our differences. So deep seated were our problems and feelings that we asked the executive director of the state school boards association to attend and facilitate. At this meeting we vented our feelings, mistrust, and allegations of all kinds. Read More …
(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) The objective of the monitoring process is to flag substandard performance before it becomes habitual and to provide counsel aimed at correcting it, without causing any embarrassment to erring board members. In my experience, it makes sense for the executive, or governance committee to make individual board member performance a formal agenda item at least quarterly, taking a management by exception approach. ― Doug Eadie1 Aware of the potential that individual board members may Read More …
(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) ― Horry County School District1 Board member performance is, in a word, boardsmanship. The first step in improving boardsmanship is identifying and communicating criteria that will be used to monitor board member performance and determine board member success. The above policy language is found in a protocol adopted by a school board, describing its expectations for board meetings and identifying how individual board members can contribute to or detract from effective board meetings. When Read More …
(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. ― Read More …
(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) A school board, being composed of persons, may find self-assessment distasteful. Implicit in the process, after all, is the assumption that its members will admit to some failures. They must be ready to see themselves as lacking in some areas. But board members, like most people, may get defensive when asked to account for their shortcomings. It is easier for boards to critique the performance of their main employee, the superintendent. ― Gene Maeroff1 Read More …
(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates Becoming a Better Board Member offers advice to boards for monitoring their own performance: Reviewing our own performance can be a healing experience. Scenario: A year and a half after two new members joined the South Valley School Board, deep divisions remain among board members and between the board and top district leadership. The board and senior staff, interviewed anonymously by an outside consultant, said Read More …
(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) High-performing boards are characterized by a number of observable behaviors. They know what their job is, and they do it efficiently. They plan their own work and perform their work at the policy level, focusing more on organizational outcomes than process. They are responsible for their own performance; they follow their own rules and deal fairly and consistently with staff and each other. They set the vision for themselves and the organization. They clearly understand Read More …
(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. ― James Madison1 To be fully effective, the board controls Read More …
(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) This advice from The Key Work of School Boards challenges a board when monitoring district performance to carefully consider its response, including what to do about the monitoring. Scenario: At the school board conference, a vendor was selling ties and buttons. Two particular buttons stood out. One said, “It’s the board’s fault!” and was selling at a brisk pace. An even bigger seller, the other button, intended for sale to board members, said “It’s Read More …
(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 Read More …