Effective Board Meetings--An Agenda Template

Here’s a suggested meeting agenda format for Boards, used by the archdiocese of Mobile, Al. and created by its former Vicar of Education, Dr. Thomas Doyle. In my experience, Boards that hold to this format will conduct lively, productive Board meetings and will support the various relationships between its members and the school principal in a healthy, dynamic partnership.

I. Routine Matters:

a.     Prayer

b.     Roll call

c.      Approval of minutes from last meeting

       These are self-explanatory, except for one point: minutes are not typically narratives of all the discussion that take place at a Board meeting, but focus rather on “actions” taken by the Board. Since minutes of the Board are technically public documents, it’s unhelpful and sometimes destructive to catalog all discussions, some of which may end up being purely speculative on a single Board member’s part but alarming to segments of the school community without the context of the give and take discussions. Less is more in reporting Board minutes.

At the same time, everyone writes. There should no oral reports given at Board meetings--by pastors, principals, committees or anyone else--as people's memories often differ, and the discipline of writing things down helps clarify issues and pushes committees to submit their work prior to Board meetings, helping provide impetus for timely meetings and pre-planning.  Furthermore, when the Board votes for an item, the exact proposal should be in writing, so that no one misunderstands what they are voting on. 

II. Voting:

The “essence” of the Board’s work, acting as a whole, is to decide, not to talk.  If the Board is functioning well, one of the committees introduced an interim proposal at the last meeting to be voted upon this meeting (see V. below).  Voting items are thus at minimum two and sometimes three meetings “old” to the Board; there should never be a case where Board members don’t have at least a meeting in advance to consider the pros and cons of a position or are “surprised” by a voting matter that suddenly arises that night.

A proposal is made in writing (often, by the committee who worked on the proposal), someone proposes at vote, a second member “seconds” the vote, a brief discussion ensues, and then the vote is taken. 

If the committee has done its work, listened to concerns raised in the previous meeting, and included those concerns in its revised proposal, there should be a near consensus of the Board by the time there’s a vote.  If the Board still seems substantially divided in the brief discussion leading up to the vote, it’s the prerogative of the Board president to table the voting, ask the committee to re-consider its proposal in light of the dissenting views and re-propose at the next meeting.  As a general rule, Boards should operate out of a consensus model, and if everyone is following this agenda process, near consensus is usually possible.

III. New Business of the Board:

The executive committee, by virtue of its executive meeting a couple weeks before the Board meeting, assigns a new task to a committee of the Board.  This “new task” has two elements:

First, it asks a specific committee to answer a specific question and report back to the Board in an interim report. For example, if there is an adjacent ten acre plot to the school that the school is considering leasing or purchasing, the executive committee doesn’t tell its building and grounds committee to “study the issue”, but instead asks it to compare facilities of area competitor schools and list out possible uses for the land. It might also commission the finance committee to discuss actual costs of purchase or lease with the owner of that property and lay out various financial means to do so. Executive committees think.

Second, the committee is given a timetable of when to report back its findings to the Board. Typically, it might assign an "interim" report for the next meeting, with "final report" for the meeting after next. 

Ultimately, since  the Board’s work is to decide, not talk, the committee's work is geared toward an actionable item--something the Board will vote upon.  If at some future date the executive committee concludes there will be no actionable piece, it drops the issue. But at this point in the meeting, the executive Board is merely assigning a future task of its committees and making sure everyone understands that task. 

IV. Administrative Reports:

Here the principal (at minimum) and the person in charge of finance (recommended), file written reports to the Board, sharing with them issues that help the Board understand the pulse of the school.  Administrators share. A principal might share significant events which have occurred or which will occur; the finance person might share the income/expense ledger, noting abnormalities, strengths or weaknesses. As with all Board work, these are in writing, but the Board may ask questions or have comments to make about the written reports.

V. Interim Reports/Proposals from Committees:

Typically, a committee’s work takes two meetings before it proposes an actionable item for vote. Here the committees report work in process and what their findings are to the Board.  This interim report should be in writing, and this is the point at the Board meeting where the most “discussing” should take place.

One of the tasks of the vice-president of the Board in the archdiocese of Mobile’s model was to call committee chairs at least two weeks before the meeting and remind them of their task and check in with them. Committees work. The key to successful Boards are successful committees who do timely work, fulfilling the specific task assigned them by the executive team. This is also where less effective Boards break down.

VI. Proposals for Future Board work:

Board members at large are asked if they have issues they’d like the Board to consider in the future. This portion of the meeting is more to simply “list” these issues rather than talk about them. The executive committee, at its next meeting, will decide whether this topic or proposal is in fact assigned to a committee for the purpose of becoming an actionable item of the Board.

Agendas govern. If a Board member wants to talk about something, here’s where he or she speaks. But it’s aimed at a future Board action to take, not an opportunity to wax on about a pet issue. And whether it gets any traction for a future Board action will depend on the executive committee, meeting apart from the Board at its regular meeting.

VII. Closing prayer:

How long should such a meeting take that follows this agenda? When committees are doing good work and everyone knows the tasks and assignments in front of them, healthy Board meetings are typically between 60-90 minutes long. Why? Because Boards decide, while committees work.  Most of the detail work that takes time is done in committees, not at the Board level. The Board then hears what the committees propose and then votes.

Furthermore, agendas govern. If something isn't on the agenda, it can be proposed to be placed there in VI. above for next time, but the current meeting is not the time to discuss the issue. Not only does the Board avoid the trap of taking on the most emotional issue of the day, it cuts down on the length of Board meetings considerably in a way that respects people's time. 

I was principal and president of a school that followed this format for nineteen years. It works well and keeps all the relationships in proper perspective. I recommend it highly.