The best boards keep their noses in the business and their fingers out.
Jim Brown (The Imperfect Board Member)
The Board Role in Supervision
As Jim Brown implies, the best boards supervise but do not run the business. The board role in supervision of a school district is to set expectations about what is to be achieved as far as desired outcomes for students are concerned (what the community wants students to know and be able to do) and provide guidance about how the district goes about its business (policies to be enforced); then see to it that such expectations are met. Guidance about outcomes for students can be found in a district’s strategic planning documents and are often highlighted in public communications documents such as newsletters and school leaders’ letters to the public. Guidance about process can be found in a district policy manual. These two areas, outcomes and process, are pursued by superintendents to ensure appropriate supervision of staff work throughout the district. This approach works well for those who answer to the superintendent. The board role, contrary to what many think, encompasses more than working with and supporting their chief executive on the board–superintendent team. The board role separates from that of their CEO when it comes to supervising the superintendent’s work, because in that situation it is the superintendent who answers to the board.
Micromanagement (Doesn’t this threaten to undermine superintendent authority?)
Boards are constantly warned about the dangers of micromanagement. And it is well that boards should be so warned. After all, a lay body of part–time officials is a poor substitute for doing the work of full– time professionals hired for their extensive experience and demonstrated capabilities. There are plenty of examples of boards abandoning their governance responsibilities to perform those of management, when they have hired professionals to do the managing.
Nevertheless, board monitoring of superintendent performance is no more an undermining of superintendent authority than is the superintendent’s monitoring of school leader performance or the principal’s monitoring of classroom teacher performance. The public expects and demands such monitoring. Governance consultant Jim Brown would call the monitoring function a matter of keeping their “noses in the business” and he would consider the board to be avoiding the dangers of micromanagement when it keeps “its fingers out.” I would rephrase his advice as follows: “The best boards keep their eyes on the business and their hands off.”
The point is that no board should abandon its governance responsibilities. Indeed, part of those responsibilities, perhaps their core, is assuring the performance of the organization. And that means the total organization, including its CEO. Rather than merely serving as partner to the superintendent, the school board is responsible for the superintendent’s performance as part of its responsibility for the total organization’s performance, so the board should ensure that monitoring includes seeing to it that no undesirable aspects of superintendent performance are overlooked. It needs to be aware of the possibility for such undesirable conditions, and it needs to have a way of discovering them other than relying on self– reporting by the superintendent, or waiting for the embarrassment of a newspaper headline, and the inevitable question “Why didn’t the board see this earlier, and take corrective action?”
How then should the board proceed with supervising its CEO?
I would advise the same basic three-step process by which the CEO supervises the staff:
- Set expectations
- Monitor
- Adjust
[Repeat steps 1– 3 as often as desired and necessary.]
For most of an organization’s performance, monitoring is best carried out under the supervision of the CEO, who prepares comprehensive reports detailing organizational outcomes and the results of monitoring for designated critical process areas such as legal compliance, fiscal health, school leadership, etc. Boards that are even interested in monitoring – and many are not – readily turn over this duty to the superintendent and are generally satisfied with this level of monitoring. But as illustrated in Part I of this posting, “Set it and forget it” (or hire and trust) is occasionally a recipe for disaster. And when disaster occurs, once is too many.
In addition to regular monitoring of organizational performance by the CEO, the board should step up to its own level of responsibility, that of supervising CEO performance by getting external eyes – someone not subject to the superintendent’s influence – to give third–party feedback directly to the board. Such CEO– level monitoring need not be conducted often. A routine could be established, for example, by which the board monitors areas deemed critical for this purpose on an annual basis, or every other year, or every third year. What matters most is that such feedback be gathered on a scheduled basis by an external agency, and only in areas the board considers most at risk. I would suggest as a bare minimum two such areas: fiscal and human.
Conducting a limited, targeted audit of spending in areas that would constitute a conflict of interest if the superintendent were to do it, and a general leadership climate survey (applicable to all levels of leadership) need not be seen as placing a public spotlight on the CEO, but as a normal board function. It does provide a degree of insurance against the emergence of unacceptable conditions that may be attributable to the superintendent’s influence. The mere knowledge that such monitoring routines exist serves the community by putting top leadership on notice, and thus may even prevent problems or conditions it is designated to detect.
What would a fiscal audit or a climate survey look like?
Fiscal Audit
Here are some examples of items that can be reported in a selective financial audit.
- Monthly pay and benefits to the superintendent (detail and analysis)
- (Possibly) monthly pay and benefits to key cabinet members (detail/analysis)
- All allowances/payments to the superintendent/key cabinet members (detail/analysis)
- Travel/PD expenses for superintendent/key cabinet members: detail and analysis of expenses, including comparison with least expensive alternatives
Climate Survey
Here are some examples of items about which questions can be asked in a general climate survey.
- District leaders: trust staff; care about employees; foster teamwork and cooperation
- Staff members: work together to get the job done; pull together to perform as a team; trust one another; really care about each other; can get help from their supervisors on personal problems
- Overall levels of: morale; respect from district/school leaders; respect for district/school leaders; job satisfaction; fear of making mistakes
- My supervisor’s performance: developing staff; accomplishing the mission; communication skills; leadership; adapting to change; creativity and innovativeness; correcting those who need it; addressing poor performance; tolerating negative, hostile or disrespectful comments about team members; setting good examples
- Extent to which my supervisor: fosters a climate of order and discipline; fosters a climate of respect; enforces policies; deals effectively with adversity or conflict when it occurs
- Extent to which you have been subjected to: sexual harassment; racial/ethnic discrimination; religious discrimination; gender discrimination; other forms of discrimination
- Skills/knowledge to do the job: Availability of needed training/PD; time allocated for training/PD; Adequacy of training/PD
- List three things that are good or going well in the organization
- List three things that are most in need of improvement in the organization