Boards That Help Us

Typically we have some very successful professionals on our Boards who want to help us become a better school. But often, they are quickly disillusioned because “they don’t do anything.” 

Absent meaningful work, meetings can easily become sniper sessions where members become critical of administrative decisions. Toxicity results. Principals often dread Board meetings as a result.

But that’s on us as school leaders. It’s our responsibility to bring forward meaningful work for our Boards, asking them to help us. We either “drive or get driven.” 

So here are tasks we can ask our Boards to assist us with:

—Boards should help us draft a strategic plan for the school, focused on faith, academic programs, building/grounds, student life, and financial/advancement initiatives. Ideas can begin with Board sponsored “listening sessions” with parents, teachers and students.

Strategic plans keep Boards focused in the right direction: the future. It is liberating and exciting to imagine future possibilities. I recommend Boards take two years to finalize a plan.

I also recommend NOT putting an implementation date for each recommendation. With timelines, the plan will be outdated within 2 years, as there will almost certainly be pieces that aren’t done within the hoped for dates. Rather, designate a meeting each year for an “annual review” of the strategic plan: What have we accomplished? Still to be done? Do we still believe X, Y and Z are worthy goals for us? Do we need to delete or revise? If we do this annually, the plan becomes a “living document” that informs future Board discussions.

Here’s an example of our strategic plan, from St. Michael Catholic High.

Other suggestions for productive Board work:

—Create a  policy for wait lists. Who gets in first? Parishioners? Siblings of current families? Good families? Smart kids? Talented kids?

—Recommend budgets, salary increases and tuition, of course. But get some financial folks on the Board to also run 5 year projections with similar assumptions! What does that tell us?

—Rewrite your school mission statement. There’s a good chance it was written in the 1970’s/80’s and is too wordy. No one remembers it! Sharpen it to three key words or phrases!

—Set maximum class sizes per grade. The principal should be the primary as the educational professional, but should bounce ideas off the Board who knows the community. 

—Ask Board members to serve as leaders of the annual fund, to devise new scholarship initiatives for financial aid, to help the school create an endowment fund and to provide gifts to initiate that endowment.

Most importantly, as school leaders, we should continually share our thinking with the board, asking them to listen, ask questions and suggest revisions to our thoughts. I just previewed my “State of School” for parents with them, and they had some good ideas for improvement.

They want us to succeed, but we must “let ‘em in.”