Tag: #superintendent

Question #10 – Does Your Board Take a Strategic Approach to Policy?

Rick Maloney

(Questions to Ask Your Board) Boards should avoid spending time on routine operating policies, but they should be deeply involved in the development of reform policies, policies designed to change the district, in fundamental ways to improve student achievement and district operations. ― Don McAdams1 School boards should spend their finite available time primarily on what are clearly strategic policies rather than routine operating policies. A strategic approach to policy elevates the policy-making function, enabling it to make a difference Read More …

Question #9 – Does Your Board ‘Act’ in a Systematic Way?

Rick Maloney
Systematic, step-by-step

An effective board exercises discipline in a systematic approach to deliberation and decision-making, fitting each board action into a recognizable pattern of governing action that ensures the board’s structures and routines are guided by intentional decisions made in alignment with its strategic role. – more – (click on the image above)

Question #8 – Does Your Board ‘See’ With a Systems Perspective?

Rick Maloney

(Questions to Ask Your Board) Governing with a systems perspective means understanding not only that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but that each of the parts is essential…effective governance flows from understanding and paying attention to all of these elements. – Katherine Gemberling et al1 A systems perspective enables a board to take a strategic view of the whole district before it acts. It ensures that the board considers how decisions targeting one part, or Read More …

Question #7 – Does Your Board Take a Strategic Approach?

Rick Maloney

(Questions to Ask Your Board) Boards are powerful. They select; evaluate; and, if they choose, terminate superintendents. They set goals, allocate resources, create policy frameworks, and oversee management and are the bridge between districts and the publics they serve. – Don McAdams1 The above succinctly describes the school board’s role and broadly outlines a strategic approach to carrying out that role. The effective board has a clear sense of its purpose. It distinguishes the strategic work of the board from Read More …