Today's school board members are set up to fail

We want to do more - and better - but how?

If you're reading this newsletter, its probably because you have a growth mindset and want to be more impactful in your role. But without time and resources, new ideas can feel more overwhelming than motivating.

Over the past 7 posts, I've shared a number of ideas about good governance. Today I want to pause and acknowledge the realities of being a school board member in 2024, and what we can do to make the job more efficacious.

First, a little history refresh about the origin of school boards.

A basic timeline:

• The first public school is established in 1635 - Boston Latin School, which was founded to provide education primarily for the sons of the early Puritan settlers. The founding of the Boston Latin School marked a significant milestone in the history of American education, as it established a precedent for publicly funded education aimed at serving the broader community.
• The establishment of the first "school board" in the United States can be traced back to 1647, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the Massachusetts School Laws. This legislation required towns with at least 50 households to establish and maintain schools. It also mandated the appointment of a "schoolmaster" whose responsibility was to teach reading and writing to children. Additionally, the law required the establishment of a school board, known as the "selectmen," in each town to oversee the operation of the schools and ensure compliance with the law. While the Massachusetts School Laws did not explicitly use the term "school board," the selectmen effectively served as the governing body responsible for overseeing the management and administration of public education in their respective towns.
• Public schools in the United States began enrolling black students in the years following the Civil War, particularly during the period of Reconstruction (1865-1877).

As I'm sure you noticed, there is a period of about 200 years when public schools, and therefore school boards, didn't serve all students.

And as I'm sure you can guess, in the early days, school board membership predominantly comprised older white males from affluent backgrounds.

This is important to acknowledge, because the role was therefore designed to work for this population, who presumably had:

• Time and flexibility, because they were often retired - meetings could be held any time for any length of time;
• Money - so the role could be unpaid or underpaid;
• Executive experience - so less training was perceived as needed;
• Fewer personal and professional responsibilities outside school board, for example, no children living at home and no day job;
• Respect - serving on a school board was a respected civic duty.

Fast forward to today - as school boards have diversified to better reflect the students and families they serve, the role has barely changed and yet the people serving in the role have changed dramatically:

• Younger working parents have caregiving and job responsibilities, making multiple long meetings each month difficult, both during the work day and in the evenings;
• People from less affluent backgrounds have less ability to volunteer their time while adding costs such as transportation to meetings and childcare during meetings;
• People from different backgrounds bring critical life experience and perspectives to the role, but might not have executive or board experience. In addition, the education system has become vastly more complex and expensive, making training, support and accessibility more important.
• Women, people of color, immigrants and LGBTQ+ individuals face racism, sexism, homophobia and discrimination as leaders. This is compounded with a general lack of respect for elected leaders today. So a role that used to provide a sense of wellbeing, now requires active self-care just to endure.

The report we released last year - Empty Seats at Powerful Tables - provided a dire warning: Only 38% of current school board member plan to run for re-election, compared to some 70% only a few years ago.

We have a lot of work to do to transform the role of School Board Member into a role that is accessible to diverse members and that sets school boards up to govern effectively towards better student experiences and outcomes.

At School Board Partners, we have a lot of ideas for how to do that, and we'll share them in a new report being released later this Spring.

For now, I just want to acknowledge that we need - and expect - a lot from today's school boards, but we don't pay them, train them, or support them enough to be successful.

That is a recipe for the dysfunction, politicization and ineffective leadership we see on boards around the country (often despite good intentions), and it will only get worse if we don't do something about it.

If you are a school board member - thank you and we see you!

If you are not, thank a school board member today!

Carrie Douglass is the co-founder and co-CEO of School Board Partners and a twice-elected school board member in Bend, Oregon. Douglass is a former teacher, school leader, district administrator, education funder and nonprofit leader. She owns three small businesses with her husband and has two children in public schools in the district she represents. Ms. Douglass holds a BA in Education and an MBA in strategy and finance.