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

School Administrator, Sept, 2004 by Paul Riede

To control nepotism, every school district is required to adopt a policy on the subject. In addition, the school board's lawyer is required to investigate whether potential employees have relatives working for the district. The mandate also requires us to ensure the district is not violating privacy laws. The law itself does not eliminate nepotism by school boards, but it does help to control it.

Even so, the State Ethics Commission is viewed as a paper tiger with a poor record of enforcement. While board members must fill out forms for the state that list potential conflicts of interest, I doubt this information is digested or applied. The state commission has no objective approach to weeding out serious ethics complaints about board members' behavior and activities.

Until school board members are held accountable for their actions, they will ignore their oath of office. Having ethical standards without enforcement and/or penalties for violations weakens the system. A district superintendent can do little about lax enforcement. Perhaps our major responsibility is to embed and enforce acceptable practices to which we can all agree.

Courage to face the truth and correct wrongdoing is the most important characteristic a superintendent brings to the job. Until our school boards all recognize that the school district exists not for individual gain but for the betterment of all, public education will spin horribly away from its fundamental purpose.

Robert Holsler is superinlendenl of the Passaic Public Schools, 101 Passaic Ave., Passaic, NJ 07055. E-mail: rholsler@passaic-city.k12.nj.us

Paul Riede is an education writer with The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y. E-mail: hoffried@twcny.rr.com