The Board must not be involved in your school’s educational program, either as individuals or as a group. Discussions and decisions about the program are not appropriate topics for Trustees. The Board has hired the School Head to orchestrate the curriculum and programs, and supervise their delivery.
However, that does not excuse Trustees from knowing how your mission is fulfilled and being able to effectively describe the excellence that occurs on your campus. Board members are ambassadors for the school, representing it in the community and speaking about it in ways that encourage potential families to investigate the school. In addition, positive comments from Trustees about the quality of your programs help validate for current families that they have made the right decision in enrolling their children in your school.
Trustees must possess accurate information about your educational programs. What they describe must match what people see and experience in their associations with the school. The School Head must provide Board members compelling information that they can share. Consider employing the following strategies in educating your school’s Board.
- Provide specific examples of the mission’s delivery in the Head’s reports to the Board. Keep this in mind not only for the written report distributed before each Board meeting, but any oral updates during each meeting. This can include descriptions of classroom activities, cocurricular programs, and student successes. Rather than attempt to offer the Board a broad variety of examples each time, the Head should describe one or two items in greater depth, relating them in a more compelling and informative way. The examples must tie in specific ways to the mission of the school, and demonstrate how the mission is fulfilled.
- Invite a faculty member to “teach” a lesson before the business of a Board meeting begins. Schedule this several times a year. Ask the teacher to demonstrate something currently taught in one of the classes. Encourage him or her to make the lesson interactive so the Trustees experience what the students learn. The session may take place in the teacher’s classroom to show how the facilities and equipment support the delivery of the mission.
- Occasionally have students demonstrate learning to the Board. When appropriate, ask several students to replicate a class or cocurricular activity. For instance, you may ask two fifth-graders to bring in their science project and explain it, or a high school musical trio to perform a couple of numbers from the recent spring concert.
- Invite the Board, as a group, to visit the school for a portion of a day to sit in on some classes. Some students (and teachers) may be uncomfortable with authority figures in the room, so ask the School Head to introduce the Trustees and calm some nerves. The Head should assign the classes the Board members will attend. Avoid assigning Trustees to classes at the same grade levels as their children. They will be familiar with the programs their children are experiencing, so it is important for the Trustees to see other parts of the school.
Offering Board members healthy ways to learn about your school’s programs and excellence enhances their ability to be effective ambassadors for the institution. Being intentional and directive about how that will happen will prevent Trustees from doing something on their own.
Additional ISM resources:
ISM Monthly Update for Trustees Vol. 10 No. 2 Solidify the Relationship Between Board and Faculty
ISM Monthly Update for Trustees Vol. 13 No. 2 School Administrators at Board Meetings: Who, When, and Why
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 38 No. 1 Antidotes to Board-Level Schizophrenia
