Popular Staff, Misconceptions, & Board Elections

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES

• Question: The superintendent is recommending the dismissal of an effective and popular principal. Our community is very upset. What's the most appropriate way for us to prevent this harm for students without being out of our lane as school board members?      -- Board Member in New Jersey

• TESBM: Despite the temptation to do so, school boards should avoid managing individual personnel decisions and instead focus on the strategic alignment between the community's adopted priorities -- Goals and Guardrails -- and managerial actions. Where the superintendent can evidence adherence to law/policy and alignment with the Goals and Guardrails, then they are behaving consistent with what the board has allowed, even if the board doesn't like the choice.  Here are some steps to consider: 

  • Evidence of alignment: In a closed session, the board could ask questions such as, "How does the dismissal of this <staff member name> align with our Goal of <insert Goal>?" or "What is the data that suggests dismissing <staff member name> will accelerate student growth relative to <insert Goal>?" If the superintendent has a reasonable, data-informed response, the board would be unwise to set the precedent of choosing to overrule the superintendent if they are adhering to the community's adopted vision and values.
  • Strategic alignment: This moment may also signal that your Guardrails need refinement. If community members believe this action violates a core value, that could be discussed at your next board self-evaluation or Guardrail monitoring session -- not decided on in the heat of public comment. 

• Question: You recommend that school boards focus on student outcomes and ignore everything else. What evidence do you have that this isn't harmful?   -- Board Member in California

• TESBM: This is not something we would ever advise. The idea of focusing on student outcomes and ignoring everything else is explicitly counter to our coaching. The school board has the obligation to focus on both the community's vision -- the Goals that describe student outcomes -- and the community's values -- the Guardrails that describe the non-negotiables. In addition, the board has the obligation to follow any laws pertaining to it (like adoption of budget, hiring of superintendent, etc). Our coaching is for school boards to take a balanced approach: invest at least half of your time on monitoring progress toward your Goals for student outcomes and half of your time on all of the other obligations the board has.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

• In the last newsletter, we shared about two school boards that are considering what to do about a social media post by their joint superintendent. Even after a closed meeting to discuss, they did not make any announcement, though the superintendent had apparently been placed on leave. We recommend checking to see whether any clauses in the superintendent's contract address situations of this nature. Then we'd look to see whether any sections of policy address situations of this nature. If the answer to either of those questions is, 'yes', then the board should follow whatever process they've agreed to. If the answer to both of those questions is, 'no', then the board is simply making a judgment call as to whether any additional action beyond the administrative leave is warranted. There typically isn't a strong rubric for such decisions; it is purely a judgement call on the part of the board.

• In this district, students are calling for the resignation of the school board chair because of what they see as disrespectful comments toward teachers. 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 coaches' thoughts.

INTERESTING READS

• An interesting research paper that looks at the intersection of school board elections, turnover, and accountability. While we don't agree with all of the conclusions, the phenomenon described certainly matches our experiences -- and demands a continued push for a strong focus on community outreach/engagement and on improving student outcomes.

• EdSource argues that school boards will be essential to the responsible integration of AI into America's public schools.

BOARD MEETING ANALYSIS

• A subscriber asked us to watch a board meeting in Minnesota. Here are the highlights from the regular board meetings:

  • Total Public Minutes: 100

  • Public Minutes Focused on Student Outcomes: 0

  • Minutes Not Focused on Student Outcomes:  Voting-14, Other-86

  • Key Topics: student recognition, budget, handbooks, insurance

  • What Coach Celebrates: Having student recognitions as part of the board meeting -- and early in the meeting -- is always advisable. In addition, most of the staff presentations either explicitly showed or mentioned the district's strategic roadmap. This demonstrates an effort to create organizational alignment that can be very beneficial.

  • What Coach Recommends: We reviewed the strategic roadmap but did not find any SMART goals about student outcomes -- only vague references to student achievement. All other strategies and desired outcomes mentioned were adult inputs -- what adults will do to try to improve student outcomes. Given the effort by the staff to drive alignment with the strategic roadmap, it would be easy for the board to adopt SMART Goals about student outcomes and then direct the superintendent to align reports to those Goals. Student recognitions could also be modified to focus on student learning relative to the Goals.

UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES

• Effective Board Norms / Guardrails for the Board?

  • We are hosting a 30-minute webinar on how the board puts in place policies to help the board steer toward effectiveness and address ineffectiveness.

  • 11am central on Friday, July 11th, 2025

  • RSVP Here

• Did you miss last month's 30-minute webinar? Email Greg for a make-up session on any of our growing list of topics, including effective budgeting, superintendent evaluation, professional services management, strategic planning, or consent agendas.

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 effective superintendent evaluation, including timeline, pre-planning, and full process.

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.

• Know a student outcomes focused school board member?

Let us know because we want to tell their stories!

• Have a 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.