Politicians need not apply
Lonnie Palmer
Math and science teacher, school principal, assistant superintendent for secondary instruction, school superintendent
Typical voter turnout in a presidential election year is 50 to 60 percent, according to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate.
In New York State and many other states, turnout for school board elections and for school budget votes hovers around 5 to 15 percent of eligible voters.[i][ii] With such low turnout, a highly motivated but very small slice of potential voters can easily sway a school board election.
The case is the same with votes for or against a school budget. Frequently, a relatively small number of repeat local voters have personal agendas: they hated the new property assessment system, the superintendent who left the district 10 years ago said something that offended them, they like to read the stories in their local newspaper about the latest shouting match at the school board meeting, etc.
School boards are the reason why schools need strong administrators. When multiple school board members with misguided priorities are elected, and weak, politically motivated school superintendents are unable to get them to focus on the right issues, a toxic leadership cycle can become a cancer to the district, killing academic improvement and in some cases bringing school districts to the brink of financial bankruptcy.
Without a strong school superintendent to guide school boards in the right direction, low turnout and school board members with personal agendas can send a school district into a downward spiral for decades to the point where school board meetings become a three-ring circus.
In thousands of school districts all over the U.S., school board members who do not understand the real priorities of their jobs are interfering where they do not belong and, in the process, creating havoc for the district’s leadership.[iii] [iv]
A school board’s role should be limited to the following:
·???????? Review data about the school district and set performance and procedural goals and policies for the school district.
·???????? Monitor and evaluate the performance of the superintendent in achieving the goals and following the policies and procedures.
·???????? Monitor data and ongoing work in the school district to ensure the goals are being achieved and policies are being followed.
There is one – and only one – school district employee school board members should be working with – the superintendent, something clearly stated in education law and reiterated in school board member training programs.[v] If teachers or other school employees can go to school board members directly with their concerns, there is no chance for a principal or superintendent to succeed.
School board members are tasked with setting district policy and district goals, monitoring the district’s progress in following those policies and achieving those goals. Period. [vi]
Many school board members want to play the role of fixer because they want to be seen as the person running the district. Their ego demands it. Other school board members are sucked into this “fixer” role by friends, neighbors or relatives and must be reminded on these occasions what their real role is.
When I started work as a school district superintendent, I learned to say in my first public session with all the school board members in attendance: “If we are going to work as an effective team, we must all share the same information. So, my assumption from here on in with this school board is that if one of us is given information, we will be sharing that information with every school board member and the superintendent. Agreed?”
This rule does not prevent unethical and incompetent school board members from getting out of line on these types of issues, but it does slow them down and it helps to set up a school board dynamic that encourages the other school board members to push back when members step over the line.
I then say: “School board members have difficult jobs. They must set policy and goals for the school district, monitor the district’s progress in following those policies and meeting those goals and they can only deal with me, the superintendent, to meet their responsibilities. That is a tall order and I promise to provide you with the information you need as far in advance as possible, to answer your questions in a timely manner and to follow up with issues that are brought to you by mistake. I promise to inform you and other school board members as to how those issues are resolved.
“In return I expect that all school board members share with me and all the other school board members the specifics of any complaint about our district from parents, students, employees and residents, including the identity of those making the complaints. We will of course keep these issues confidential among us and our administrative staff if the board member so wishes and our attorney agrees the issue qualifies for confidentiality.”
This is usually followed by a pause, but eventually they realize that there is no other realistic way to proceed unless they choose dysfunction.
Invariably, individual school board members will violate these expectations. The best school boards deal with these violations in private. They send the administrators out of their executive session (including the superintendent!) and make their expectations clear to the offending member, and that is the end of the problem.
With dysfunctional school boards, the school district attorney and the school board president may meet with the offending board member and provide a verbal warning. If the behavior persists a written warning should be given to the recalcitrant school board member. If the process continues after one to three additional written warnings, the proper procedures for removal of a school board member should be initiated.
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Sometimes these removal procedures make the “bad” school board member a local celebrity, and they’re re-elected to the school board. That is a problem. Local communities must decide if they want a school system that works or a side show at school board meetings.
And if the finances or the test scores in the district are bad (and in the districts with board members who act this way invariably one or both are), removal of the entire school board for financial or academic bankruptcy should be the ultimate consequence.
Those individuals on the school board when the removal occurs should not be allowed to run for the school board in the future after the board removal process has ended and regular school board member elections have resumed.
Many superintendents who survive in these school districts are complicit in this failure of leadership and manage to remain in their positions by hiding poor academic performance and financial data that might otherwise end their leadership.
On more than one occasion I have been contacted by superintendents in trouble. In one instance, a superintendent reached out looking for a new business official. He became disenchanted with the business official who went along with him spending down the fund balance (the school district’s savings for a rainy day). They used it to balance the budget. Now the business official was telling the superintendent they had no more money.
Using the fund balance is like living on the wealth you have accumulated. Eventually, it is all gone. The fund balance is for one-time emergencies, not payroll.
School superintendents who rely exclusively on their political skills, while ignoring important data, delegating critical leadership tasks and failing to communicate effectively with the school board and the public, set the stage for chaos among school board members. Think of the most ridiculous day on the floor of the U.S. Congress. You get the idea in microcosm, multiplied by far too many of the 15,000 school districts in the nation.
THE END
Next up: Chapter 11 for schools
[i] Sandra Tan, “Despite high stakes, voter turnout is low for Buffalo School Board races,” The Buffalo News, May 3, 2016, https://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/buffalo-public-schools/despite-high-stakes-voter-turnout-is-low-for-buffalo-school-board-races-20160503
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[ii] Jack Cullen and Thomas Geyer, “Low turnout follows Scott County school board election trend,” Quad City Times, September 9, 2015, https://qctimes.com/news/local/government-and-politics/elections/low-turnout-follows-scott-county-school-board-election-trend/article_cead6a09-bcb8-55ab-99e7-598794f36bc7.html
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[iii] Barbara O’Brien, “Hamburg School Board member faces misconduct charges,” The Buffalo News, April 28, 2014, https://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/hamburg/hamburg-school-board-member-faces-misconduct-charges-20140428
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[iv] Michal Rosenberger, “Team Leadership: School Boards at Work,” Technomic Publishing Company, 1997, ISBN 978-1-56676-5268, p. 76
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[v] Hildy Gottlieb, “Why Boards Micro-Manage and How to Get Them to Stop,” Creating the Future, ReSolve, 2009, https://www.help4nonprofits.com/NP_Bd_MicroManage_Art.htm
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[vi] Schoollawesource.tasb.org, “Board Roles and Responsibilities,” TASB eSource, https://www.tasb.org/Services/Legal-Services/TASB-School-Law-eSource/Governance/Board-Roles-and-Responsibilities.aspx
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