Training for My Board Colleagues? You Bet - why school board members need training - Brief Article

School Administrator, Feb, 2001 by William R. Morehouse

Training should be mandatory for all school board members. It is in the best interest of the children and education as a whole to have board members trained, at the very least, in their fundamental duties and responsibilities, boardsmanship and professional ethics.

This training should include recognition of the fine line that separates the superintendent and the board. Whenever a district gets in trouble with the community, it usually means either the board or the superintendent has violated that delicate balance.

I would begin this process by quickly separating formal education from school board training. The extent of a board member's schooling is not the crux here. A board member may not have a high school diploma or may hold a doctorate. The issue here is not the extent of one's education prior to election. The training that board members need is training specific to functioning as an effective member of the community's board of education.

Many, if not most, newly elected school board members voluntarily attend training programs. But some don't and some won't.

Narrow Interests

In my 21 years on a local board, too often I have seen a new board member get elected and come aboard with a single purpose in mind. Perhaps the newcomer's issue relates to a popular notion (or rumor) circulating through the community. Possibly the new board member's child had a run-in with a teacher or administrator. Perhaps the board member sees the new elected post as a way to further his or her business, popularity or community standing. The bottom line is that a board member must have a mindset to be there for the benefit of public education and the children served by that system.

Board members who hold a narrow, single interest tend to disrupt more than they contribute. They try to twist discussion of any subject into what they want to talk about. Thankfully, some eventually will get frustrated by colleagues who don't share their confined point of view and resign. What's much worse is when a single-interest representative remains on the board, creating problems within the district that spill over into the community.

Certainly board members have a right, even a duty, to disagree with each other, but it should be for good reason. A loose cannon can defeat school district budgets. Single-issue board members delay moving forward on other critical issues, hoping to get concessions on their pet project. A well-intentioned but misdirected board member may create a need for unnecessary verbal or written communication with the community to clarify a situation or to correct misinformation or false impressions.

Board members are elected without real knowledge of what the duties and responsibilities really are. I remember when people said to me, "Oh, run for the school board. It will only involve a couple of hours a month." How many prospective school board members today regularly attend school board meetings prior to seeking election? Rarely do you find board candidates at meetings prior to the election.

To contribute positively to the board, to public education and to the children, a board member must approach the position willing to devote far more energy and time than a couple of hours each month at a meeting. When our area school board association presents an annual workshop for prospective school board members, we let them know exactly what to expect--without scaring them away--and we try to instill a sense of teamwork.

An ideal board is composed of three, five, seven or nine members with various educational, vocational, economic and ethnic backgrounds. It will be a cross-section of the school district. It will be able to openly and honestly discuss the problems and the opportunities of the district.

Newcomer Paralysis

I find it generally takes a new school board member a year or two before being able to constructively participate in discussions. School board training can dramatically reduce the time necessary to bring a newcomer up to speed. Once new members understand that RWADA is not referring to the strife-torn country in central Africa but is a closely pronounced abbreviation for a standard measurement in the state-aid formula (Resident Weighted Average Daily Attendance), they will begin to comprehend what the rest of the board and superintendent are talking about.

Unprepared board members can be paralyzed by any number of factors: state and federal laws that do not make sense, an endless array of acronyms and abbreviations, the presence of the public at board meetings and inquiries from the press. Participation in an organized presentation or training session would go a long way toward producing more productive and less disruptive board members. Consider for a moment a school district in your area that's in public turmoil. Probably a majority of the board consists of first- or second-year members. I know of a reorganization meeting of a seven-person board where two members were absent, leading to the election of a new board president on a 3-2 vote. What followed came off looking like a circus act to the public.