Welcome to The Effective School Board Member. You ask tough questions and twice per month we get nationally certified school board coaches to provide answers. We include resources to help school board members become more effective, like readings and school board meeting analysis.
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES
- Question: My school board wants to have goals for almost every department in the district. I understand their reason -- so that it doesn't look like we don't care about each area -- but it just feels like too much. Is there a limit on how many goals are too many? -- Board Member in Indiana
- TESBM: The number of goals you adopt matters because the school board that prioritizes everything is the school board that prioritizes nothing. We recommend 1-3 goals, no more than 5. This is one of the hardest challenges for leaders: focusing on being effective at 1, 2 or 3 things and accepting that it doesn't feel good, rather than doing what feels good -- having 20 goals -- at the expense of being effective. In the moments when you have to choose, would you rather look/feel good for you or be effective for students? The school board should identify the 1-3 highest priority areas of the community's vision for what students should know and/or be able to do, and use those to set the goals.
- Question: How can I know if I should vote 'yes' on the budget or not? I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't fully understand all the financial aspects yet, but I still want to do my fiduciary duty. What do I do? -- Board Member in Texas
- TESBM: You're not alone. School system financials are typically challenging because of state legislative requirements. We recommend learning about school system financials to support your role (here's a great place to start). But as a school board member, being an expert in finances isn't your job. A budget is a vision and values document, and your job is to ask questions to understand alignment between the community's vision and values and the school system's resource use. Your job is to represent the community's vision and values, not to be an education, legal, or financial expert. School boards are the community vision and values experts. So the first step to evaluating whether to vote in favor of a budget is for the school board to adopt the community's vision and values -- we call these Goals and Guardrails. Once you know the Goals and Guardrails, ask the superintendent how much of last year's budget focused on Goals accomplishment and how that varies this year. Do not automatically assume there's alignment; it's the superintendent's job to convince you there's alignment between the Goals and Guardrails, and resource allocation.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
-
In this district, the superintendent said the $870m spent without school board authorization was a "good faith error." Without insider details (the subscriber who shared this isn't a board member), what would you do? Go here to share what you would do in this situation. In the next newsletter, we'll share your responses and our coaching.
INTERESTING READS
- Here's research on the number of goals an organization should have for effectiveness. Our recommendations match their conclusions.
- If you haven't read Project 2025's Department of Education section, it's worth reading to prepare for constituent questions. Whether you support or oppose the proposals, it's better to know the ideas being put forward than rely on someone else's opinion.
BOARD MEETING ANALYSIS
- A subscriber asked us to watch the December meetings of a school board in Florida. Here are the highlights from the combined workshop/business meetings:
- Total Minutes: 3hrs 32mins
- Minutes Focused on Student Outcomes: 0hrs 0mins
- Key Topics: strategic plan update, books challenges
- What Coach Celebrates: Board members asked meaningful questions about the strategic plan which is valuable since it appears to be the closest thing the board has to a set of priorities to focus on.
- What Coach Recommends: The board should adopt Goals based on the community's vision -- not leave it to the staff -- and then monitor progress toward Goals rather than monitoring the staff's implementation plan.
BONUS MATERIALS
For paid subscribers, here are links to additional resources:
- Additional details about the analyzed meeting:
- Board Meeting Video
- Workshop Video
- Time Use Analysis
- A guidance document, including recommended questions, on analyzing a budget proposal.
Question we can answer? Submit it to our coaches.
Want a school board meeting analyzed? Send us the video.
Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe to the newsletter.
Enjoying? Forward this to regional / state / national colleagues.
Responses