This document has been formatted for printing from your browser from the Web site of the Illinois Association of School Boards.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE -- This document is © copyrighted by the Illinois Association of School Boards. IASB hereby grants to school districts and other Internet users the right to download, print and reproduce this document provided that (a) the Illinois Association of School Boards is noted as publisher and copyright holder of the document and (b) any reproductions of this document are disseminated without charge and not used for any commercial purpose.
Illinois School Board Journal
January/February 2006
Leading your district with a clear vision
by Ginger Wheeler
Ginger Wheeler is a free-lance writer from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, whose work has appeared in national magazines, local newspapers and on the World Wide Web.
Being elected to serve on a school board can be an exhilarating and yet daunting experience. Having a seat at the table connotes real power to make a difference in the community and in the lives of the district's constituents: students, staff and taxpayers.
But public schools are multi-million dollar enterprises constricted by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of state and federal requirements, and closely monitored by dozens of interest groups with deep knowledge, as well as enterprising lawyers ready to get the courts to see things their way.
So how do school board members stay up to speed so they can oversee and monitor all that goes on in such a complex financial, social and governmental institution? After all, the only qualifications to serve on a school board are that the candidate must be 18 years old, a registered voter and get elected. School board members do not have to be qualified in any aspect of public education, administration, tax law or even any minute aspect of running a public school, as long as they are elected to the post by their fellow citizens. What do school board members add to administrators with doctorate degrees and teachers with master's degrees?
The short answer: the primary task of school board members is not managing, overseeing, negotiating or making decisions about running the district, said John Cassel, director of field services for the Illinois Association of School Boards.
Huh? What is the role of a school board if not to supervise staff, scrutinize budget line items, oversee decisions and hire quality teachers?
"The role of a school board is to set direction, provide leadership to the district's paid staff and provide accountability to the community," Cassel said. "Big picture direction equals good school board governance. Once set, boards entrust the actual doing to staff and volunteers."
If the goal is direction and purpose, how exactly does a board get away from picking a toilet paper and move toward setting policy? How does the board get beyond the talk of buses, budgets and basketball to talk about vision, mission and goals?
IASB has gathered the collective wisdom of thousand of boards and is charged with sharing it with any folks who may be interested.
The reward: shorter, more productive school board meetings and a motivated staff who are clear about what the community wants from its schools.
"While school board members may not have the skills to be administrators, or the credentials to be teachers, what they do know is what the community wants and needs from its schools," said Barbara Toney, an IASB consultant who served 15 years on the West Chicago SD 33 school board. "It's a board member's job to provide that leadership to the district. That's good governance."
No organization can be successful for long without that sense of direction — that leadership.
The board's role
Each community has its own unique identity, and the school's mission is to be the educational expression of that identity, living out the core values and beliefs, Cassel said, and the process for articulating such sentiments are taught by a variety of IASB programs. IASB governance principles are based on a policy-focused process developed by John Carver, a former teacher and administrator turned politician and consultant. Carver has conducted thousands of board workshops around the world and written several books to communicate his ideas on good governance.
While primarily focused at boards operating in the not-for-profit world, Carver's concerns for governance began taking shape in the 1970s at the same time the public began demanding more from public schools: more inclusion, more special needs responsibilities, better facilities and more complex curricular offerings. Better governance and leadership were required to meet these needs.
"The primary focus of the board should be on the shape and direction of the schools," said Cassel, who teaches the IASB governance model to boards. "It's about ends (what we want), rather than means (how to deliver the ends), although some people like to call them goals and strategies.
"The school board's job is to figure out the right shape and character of education in our particular community," he added. "The right allocation of resources for Morton likely isn't right for New Trier."
Learning from business
Boards can learn from corporate brand development techniques, according to James Paglia, a brand strategy consultant with In's & Out's Inc., a marketing consultancy. Paglia, who has served as president of his son's middle school PTA, is an expert at corporate brand development and has worked with such consumer icons as McDonalds, Wendy's, Taco Bell and IBM, as well as other large, medium and even start up companies.
"Before we can start a brand campaign, we have to focus on what differentiates a client," Paglia said. "We have to focus on what is different about that organization or institution. We have to identify clarity in their vision, mission and positioning (VMP)."
Paglia explained that a district's VMP may be different from the individual schools within that district. Each may have its own VMP. Within the VMP, boards can and should set policy that governs, but that doesn't administer.
"What is the community's vision for this school district?" "What is the role of the top administrator?" "What is the mission of each school within the district?" The school board should take a lead in answering these questions, Paglia said.
Applying that corporate thinking to a school district's needs, one could think of the multi-layered policy approach by comparing policy-making to a series of nested bowls. The outer, largest bowl determines the broadest vision: "What are we going to do for whom and at what cost."
As the board deals with issues that come before it, they must keep that broad policy statement in mind and then set more specific governing policies that would nest within the largest "bowl." For example, clarifying the role of the superintendent would be guided by the big picture that asks, "What are we going to do for whom at what cost?"
Paglia illustrates how such layering works for a client like Nike, whose vision is: "There is an athlete that can be brought out in everyone."
According to Paglia, Nike's mission might read something like: "We provide equipment, materials and support to help people identify the athlete within them."
What makes Nike unique is its distinct market position, Paglia said, that they are the only firm to help customers achieve personal victories.
The positioning strategy plays itself out in Nike television commercials and advertising. Nike promotes itself through athletes, both famous and unknown, who achieve personal success. Michael Jordan's teams may have won six NBA championships, but Nike focused its message on Jordan's desire to be his absolute best.
Similar concept
Developing a vision, mission and position by a school board to effectively govern a school district may use different language, but the concept is the same: Create the big picture direction, and then allow administrators, staff and teachers to carry out the work.
Cassel said school districts can start by clearly identifying and articulating their values and beliefs.
From personal experience, Toney knows that some board members feel they are losing control. But part of IASB's training shows board members how to monitor without meddling. Toney compares the techniques taught for monitoring performance to that of an automobile's dashboard.
"In a car, the dashboard tells you how fast you're going, what gear you're in and how much gas you have," Toney said. "It doesn't tell you how the car was engineered. Yet, you get where you're going without having to understand every little thing about the car. We have engineers and mechanics for that."
IASB consultants help boards put the dashboard in place to ensure that the school district is heading in the right direction. "Making decisions should not be based on feelings and perceptions, but on concrete data," she said.
In addition to the LeaderShop Academy for all board members, IASB offers TAG — an acronym for Targeted Achievement through Governance. The program is funded by a grant from the Illinois State Board of Education, and is available at no cost to any school district that fails to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for two years under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
"TAG helps boards understand the link between policy and progress," Toney said. "I've seen school boards mired in making decisions about the type of carpet to pick and whether or not the kids like hot lunches. That's not their job."
It makes sense, Cassel said, that if the board does its job and sets meaningful policy, then administrators can do their jobs better. And if administrators do their jobs well, then principals can do their jobs, and so on down the line.
"When you try to do someone's job for them, then they will back off. They will think, ‘Why should I do that job, when they are doing it for me?'" he said.
Sharing examples
Schools around the country are embracing the Carver/corporate/data-driven leadership model, which is also espoused by the National Association of School Boards. (See http://www.nsba.org and click on school governance on the left side of the Web page.)
Cassel points to Naperville CUSD 203 as an example of a school district that has done an excellent job of creating an identity and a way forward. The district's strategic plan is online at http://www.naperville203.org/board/StrategicGoals.asp.
The Tucson (Arizona) Unified School District articulates the concept this way:
Tamalpais Union High School District in Larkspur, California, has another great example of putting the concept into practice: www.tamdistrict.org/board/vision/values_stmts.htm.
Even though more and more school districts are working toward the governance-tested process of defining their mission, vision and goals doesn't mean the process is easily achieved. Most people are not used to thinking in terms of big pictures or policy governance, and they bring many different frames of reference to a process that seeks consensus around ideas that are often shades of gray rather than black and white.
Paglia said drawing meaningful words needed to create a vision, mission and positioning statements out of a group of people takes special training.
"It's a challenging, but rewarding, exercise," he said. "If everyone agrees right off the bat, then we haven't done our job. The ability to get to that critical function is what makes a mission so important."
Editor's note: For more on using a dashboard to monitor district progress, see "Ask the Staff" in the March/April 2005 issue of The Illinois School Board Journal, available at www.iasb.com/files/askstaff_ma05.htm.