Assessment Data, Community Listening, & External Investigations

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES

• Question: Why do you all tell school boards that they have to use state assessment data for their goals?   -- Board Member in Arizona

• TESBM: That is not our coaching. Never has been, never will be. Not because we oppose state assessments, but because it's not our call. Two main reasons.

• As coaches, we must support school boards in clarifying their community's vision and values, and finding a way to measure whether or not they're being honored in reality. That requires some type of assessment. But which assessments, which types of assessments, and the source of the assessments are choices for the school board (or the superintendent if delegated). A coach shouldn't interfere. Does a coach ensure the board has ways to measure progress relative to the community's vision and values? Yes. Does a coach try to tell the board which measures to use? No.

• Coaches encourage school boards to adopt the community's vision for what students should know and/or be able to do -- we call this setting Goals -- but we don't assume they'd be best measured by state assessments. It's whatever represents the community's vision for what students should know and/or be able to do. Where that matches state assessment, many boards choose to use that data since it's available. But where it doesn't, the board needs to rely on other data.

• Question: In our district, each board member is the liaison to a group of schools in our respective parts of the district. One of the new board members isn't respecting this and keeps attending meetings in another board member's region which is creating conflict. How would you handle this? Is this a situation where censure makes sense?   -- Board Member in New York

• TESBM: Forget about censure. You have larger issues unrelated to the new board member.

• The primary issue is the belief that only one school board member can listen to community members in a specific part of the school system. Board members often confuse campaigning with governing and this is a symptom of that. School board members often campaign from a specific area, which is fine. But once on the school board, every member is ethically and morally obligated to govern on behalf of every child within the school system.

• This is why when school board members conduct community listening campaigns as part of Goal setting, they 1) go out in pairs and 2) go predominantly to neighborhoods other than the one where they live. So instead of trying to discipline your newest member, join them. Create a collective plan as a full board -- not just as individual school board members -- to go out in pairs and do intentional listening. Ideally each board member would partner with every other board member and would participate in listening in every corner of the community.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

• In the last newsletter, we shared about a district where the local newspaper — relying on unnamed sources — reported that the superintendent is being accused of being abusive. You all had many perspectives. Some said they'd ignore unnamed sources (which, as the paper pointed out, is different from anonymous sources). Some said they'd immediately put the superintendent on leave. Some said it's not the board's job to deal with staff level drama.

• Allegations against the superintendent are board work. But the school board typically lacks enough information. Thus, these situations likely warrant an independent, external investigation. The independent investigator's task is to return a finding that the allegations are either substantiated or unsubstantiated. Having the discipline and professionalism to not comment on ongoing personnel/investigative matters is an important first step. Getting more information is usually the next step.

• In this district, a school board member is accused of leaking student IEP data to the public. Now there may be an effort to have the board member removed under state law. Would you support such an effort? Why or why not? Go here to share what you would do in this situation. In the next newsletter, we'll share your responses and our coaches' thoughts.

INTERESTING READS

• Many school systems already have an education foundation to support them. This district is considering opening one.

• Here's another district that's leaning into student leadership at the governance level. 

BOARD MEETING ANALYSIS

• A subscriber asked us to watch an April school board meeting in Nevada. Here are the highlights from the combined workshop/business meeting:

  • Total Minutes: 140

  • Minutes Focused on Student Outcomes: 0

  • Key Topics: student recognitions, bonds, facilities, technology plan, calendar

  • What Coach Celebrates: We always appreciate when boards take time to recognize student success. This was also one of the first things that happened in this board meeting, which is something we strongly recommend. 

  • What Coach Recommends: After reviewing the strategic plan, we could not find any goals about student outcomes -- goals about adult operations yes, but no SMART goals that described what the board expects students to know or be able to do. We strongly recommend curing this at the board's earliest convenience. Without student outcome goals, the board lacks clarity regarding whether the school system is accomplishing its sole purpose: to improve student outcomes. In the absence of SMART goals about student outcomes, we have no way of identifying the alignment of board action with creating the conditions for improvement in student outcomes -- which is why so many items that easily could have been tracked as student outcomes focused were instead relegated to the "other" category. As a result, 0% of this meeting was coded as being focused on improving student outcomes. That doesn't suggest useful work isn't happening, but the board has no reliable means of authoritatively identifying whether the work aligns with the board's vision for improvements in what students should know or be able to do.

UPCOMING OPPORTUNITY

• How Do Boards Effectively Manage Professional Services?

  • We are hosting a 30-minute webinar on best practices for using external legal, external auditing, search firms, coaching, and more.

  • 11am central on Friday, May 9th, 2025

  • RSVP Here

• Did you miss last month's 30-minute webinar? Email Greg for a make-up session.

• We are considering conducting a national school board member survey. If you could ask any question of school board members nationwide, what would you ask and why?

BONUS MATERIAL

For paid subscribers, here are links to additional resources:

• Additional details about the analyzed meeting -- including a video link, time use evaluation, and more.

  • Board Meeting Video

  • Meeting Materials

  • Strategic Plan

  • Completed Time Use Evaluation

• A guidance document on how boards handle external professional services such as auditing, legal, and search.

Thank you for reading The Effective School Board Member. You ask tough questions and twice per month we get nationally certified school board coaches to provide answers. We help school board members tell their stories and provide additional resources to help them be more effective.

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