Board ethics: in states and communities, the ongoing struggle to codify appropriate behavior of school board members

School Administrator, Sept, 2004 by Paul Riede

School board members must be at the forefront to respect the need for ethical boundaries. They must take ethical decisions and behavior seriously, removing any personal issues from their agendas in order to address student needs. After all, they set a public example for all students to learn to make ethical choices, to think critically and to believe they can make a difference through their words and actions.

Loose Cannons

One major challenge in building an ethical school community is that school personnel tend to stay forever, while most board members come and go. However, some board members are re-elected repeatedly, enabling them to become loose cannons, Their political agendas grow over time and ultimately power takes precedence over any genuine commitment to put student matters first. Ethical considerations are lost. When an elected board member commits egregious actions, public trust disappears, and a superintendent's hands are tied until the voters decide whether to remove the trustee from office.

The formation of an ethics advisory committee to reinforce ethical standards in decision making may be one way for a school system to prevent inappropriate behavior. Members of this committee could be drawn from the community and school employee groups. Although our board has subcommittees to address ethical issues, no framework or board policy provides a process for dealing with a potential ethics violation. Self-policing does not work. Although New Jersey has a school ethics commission, too often these officials fall asleep at the switch, and unethical issues are overlooked or barely examined.

Board members often conveniently forget their primary role is to establish and enforce policies benefiting students, not themselves. By raising questions to the board member about his or her behavior early on, a superintendent can prevent a board member from starting down a path to unethical acts.

Acting ethically must mean more than separating right from wrong. During every school board election, candidates give forceful presentations of right and wrong, yet the day after they're sworn in, some become members of the "good ol' boys club." Board members cannot assume the role of employment counselors. They cannot be everyone's friend or promise jobs or contractual work. If they can't separate personal issues from their board responsibilities, they surely shouldn't be serving our children or our community.

Recently a member of the Passaic school board was charged with a felony and jailed for an alleged theft stemming from a job-related payroll scheme--the latest example of corruption superseding ethical commitment.

A Paper Tiger

In 1992 New Jersey created the School Ethics Act to control nepotism, a growing problem in many school districts. It is a problem that would not occur if board members didn't have hidden personal agendas concerning hiring certain individuals. When it comes to nepotism, as a superintendent I fear the possibility of requiring a DNA test to find out that we're all related.