Four Ways Boards Subtract Value from Schools
This post is the first of two on ways private, independent educational institution governing boards add and subtract value from their schools. [Next in the series will be a post about ways boards add value.]1. Publicly criticize (or join with criticism by others) the school, its leaders and their decisions. Becoming a board member means surrendering your freedom to engage in such conversations outside the boardroom. No decision by a school leader will meet with universal approval, and some decisions will be extremely unpopular. Regardless, board members must, in public, defend and support school leadership, or at the very least to refrain from commentary. To do otherwise lessens your school head's authority and begins unraveling the fabric of trust and mutual protection that should exist between boards and heads.2. In the absence of grounds for suspicion, demand of administration ever more detailed data and reporting on the minutia of school operations. Independent and international schools have relatively shallow administrative structures, and meeting board requests for details saps bandwidth that could better be allocated to initiatives that advance the mission. Board members are entitled to a reasonable amount of operating data, and there should be clarity in advance between the board and head about exactly what types and amount are appropriate in a given year. Beyond that, members should eschew making ad hoc requests for finer and finer grains of evidence.
3. Convene informally with other trustees outside of board and committee meetings to discuss matters about the school and its personnel. A board should do its work in committee, where disagreement, concern and contrary opinions can receive a frank and open discussion. Deliberation should happen with the full board present or not at all. Nothing good comes when four or five trustees meet over coffee to talk about their mutual concerns about the middle school sports program. To the contrary, such gatherings too often presage the formation of factions leading toward a divided board.4. Assume a constituent-representational posture, rather than keeping a constant institutional mindset. Board members do not serve as representatives of the parents, alumni, neighbors or other stakeholders. Rather, they hold the school and its mission in trust for future generations of students and must always put long-term institutional welfare above the interests of any constituent group. Adopting a constituent-representational focus leads to a less strategic and more reactive focus, thereby further draining scarce administrative bandwidth from more crucial initiatives.Dealing with members who subtract value through one or more of the above should be a preoccupation of board leadership; e.g., the chair and governance committee chair. In my experience, unchecked value-subtracting misbehavior by trustees rarely happens in isolation.