The Effective School Board Member

The bi-weekly newsletter for people who care about school boards becoming intensely focused on improving student outcomes.

Officer Selection, Declining Enrollment, & Blaming Teachers

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: There are two different board members who want to be board chair. I'm new to the board; how do I know who to vote for? -- Board Members in Colorado, California, and North Carolina TESBM: Short answer: vote for the person most likely to keep the board relen...

Nov 25, 2025

No Confidence, Curriculum Access, & Superintendent Contracts

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: How do we handle the union passing a vote of no confidence in our superintendent? -- Board Members in Wisconsin and California TESBM: Treat it as input, not as the outcome. Popularity isn’t the board’s metric for the superintendent -- progress on the b...

Nov 11, 2025

Internal Auditors, External Auditors, & Strategic Plans

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: How should we evaluate and manage our internal auditor? -- Board Member in Ohio TESBM: First, in some states the internal auditor reports to the school board, in others to the superintendent, and in others it's a choice. As such, this response won't even...

Oct 28, 2025

Superintendent Retention, Interview Questions, & Strategic Plans

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: How do I know if we should keep our superintendent or not? -- Board Member in California TESBM: Most importantly: there are no supernatural superintendent candidates out there. So every time you go looking for a new superintendent, you're blindly reachin...

Oct 14, 2025

Social Media, Search Firms, & Goal Setting

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: Some of our school board members have a social media page where they post board votes they lost and tell lies about the superintendent. How can we work as a team if we are so divided? -- Board Member in Maine TESBM: Bottom line: this is a tough situation w...

Sep 30, 2025

360 Evals, Time Use Eval, & Supt Turnover

SPECIAL REQUEST If you enjoy this newsletter, please help us reach and share this free resource with as many school boards as we can! We would be incredibly grateful if you share this link -- https://www.effectiveschoolboards.com/newsletter/ -- with 10 school board members, superintendents, st...

Sep 16, 2025

Back To School, Policy Leadership, & Democracy

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: What role should school board members play in back to school? -- Board Members in California, Texas, & Rhode Island TESBM: We're fans of school board members volunteering in back-to-school activities -- passing out backpacks, welcoming families/students ...

Sep 02, 2025

Demands, Monitoring, & Big Rocks

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: How do we respond to community demands to fire a teacher or principal? -- Board Member in North Carolina TESBM: Regardless of the topic your community’s discussing, start by listening so the speaker experiences being heard. We teach a specific method for this...

Aug 19, 2025

No, No, No and No

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES It's really been this kind of month already. If the intention is to be student outcomes focused then unless the law or policy say otherwise... Question: Is it appropriate for the board chair to be getting information from the superintendent that the rest of us are de...

Aug 05, 2025

Guardrails, Principal Support, & Supt Contract

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: What if our superintendent doesn’t agree with our Guardrails? -- Board Member in Georgia TESBM: Guardrails are the written form of the community’s non-negotiable values; they say what the superintendent must not do while pursuing the board’s Goals. When t...

Jul 22, 2025

Operations, Community Issues, & Mismanagement

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: Why shouldn't we get more involved in operations if we see things going poorly? Aren't we accountable for operations as well? -- Board Member in Missouri TESBM: Let's start by clarifying who the "we" is in that question. If "we" means individual board members...

Jul 08, 2025

Time Use, Public Comments, & High Expectations

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES Question: How do we know if we're spending our time on student outcomes? What role do committees play? Are committees counted or not? -- Board Member in Rhode Island TESBM: All board authorized public meeting time -- by any name, be it committee, task force, working g...

Jun 24, 2025

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