John J. Cassel is IASB field services director for the DuPage, North Cook and Starved Rock divisions.
Staffing decisions are a challenge for all organizations, including school districts. How do we hire the best people? How do we make sure our staff gets good feedback and productive staff development? How do we make tenure decisions? How do we distribute pay and benefits?
It’s not surprising that personnel is a key area for board trouble … trouble that arises among board members, between the board and the superintendent, with staff, with parents and community. Everyone seems to care about this topic, and in today’s world of high expectations, we all have declining patience for incompetence and lack of effort.
A school board’s concern for good personnel decisions is easily understood. Schools — teaching and learning — are essentially about people and relationships. Without good people working well together, we’ll never have great schools.
The board wants it done right … and the common human impulse is to do it yourself. Concern is also understandable if the board finds itself watching a bureaucratic district with incompetent people hiding behind policies, procedures and inertia. School boards often want to see good things happen — now. So, they take the reins into their own hands. A common way the board asserts itself is by reversing a superintendent recommendation on a staffing matter.
However, I think experience (and best practice) will show wise boards achieve their goals by taking a prescribed, limited role in personnel. School boards “do” personnel by doing the board part, not by making individual personnel decisions.
Let’s look at the particulars regarding how the board can add value and ensure good personnel practices and decisions.
1. A meaningful context for personnel decisions is fundamental. In some ways, the most important thing the board has to say about personnel comes through the commitments it makes about district purpose and direction. What are we trying to do as a district? What do we care about? What’s the culture we are trying to establish/perpetuate? With these foundational commitments in place, the board can ask how given personnel decisions fit into the larger picture. That is: “We are hiring these particular folks because we have long range goals for our staff and they fit best into that picture.”
2. The board, itself, must make the key personnel decision — hiring a superintendent. Once hired, the board understands that everyone else in the system works for the superintendent. In any other context, would it seem right for another entity to make personnel decisions regarding someone else’s employee?
The board will also understand that its one employee — the superintendent — is the key point of accountability. If things are not going well, it’s the superintendent’s problem. If a given staff member is perceived as not performing, the board has a right (and obligation) to ask the superintendent what he/she is planning to do about it.
3. Every personnel decision is multi-faceted, requiring a nimble and nuanced approach. The school board, a corporate entity, is good at making decisions about direction and purpose (what we want), but not so good at the mechanics of facilitating the vitality of the whole organization work. The board should be focused on the big picture and then hire a superintendent they trust to get the day-to-day details right. Personnel is a great example of how the big picture and details intersect. A board that allows itself to get mired in the details has lost its way (and since no one else in the district is doing big picture, it likely will not get done). The board that takes on personnel also dis-empowers the people most able to do the district work by usurping the authority of the superintendent and administration.
4. Yes, the Illinois school code requires the board to sign off on many personnel decisions. Yet wise boards do not see this as an invitation to make the decisions “board decisions.” The board expects to take the superintendent’s recommendation and affirm them. It does not feel like a rubber stamp — it feels like a mutual partnership where both play their appropriate part.
A board that finds itself uncomfortable with the superintendent’s recommendations has a larger, more fundamental problem. And, if that board is wise, it will quickly move to address the underlying issues (whether trust, policy interpretation, priorities, values or commitments).
5. Superintendents often want a board perspective. If both the board and superintendent are clear about roles, board members are free to offer their thoughts. Many districts include board members on search committees. It works if the board members do not think they have a “super vote.” Likewise, the superintendent may ask the whole board for feedback — again, a wise board knows it is offering a board perspective that the superintendent can integrate into all the other perspectives and make a decision that truly belongs to the superintendent.
6. Did we follow policy and procedure on this matter? Effective boards assure that the district has both policy (board commitments) and procedure (staff commitments) in place to guide personnel decisions. When a recommendation comes to the board, an appropriate question (maybe the only question) is “Did we follow our policy and your procedures on this one?” If the answer is yes, the board can feel comfortable in ratifying the recommendation. If no, we go back to exploring the more fundamental issues.
7. Trust … and verify. It’s important that policy and outcomes are reviewed regularly to be sure everyone stays on the same page. It’s also important that the board has access to good monitoring data to assure things are working as intended. What evidence do we have that our personnel decisions are moving us forward? What are the improvement areas for our district and what’s the personnel component?
The bottom line? While it might seem counter-intuitive at first blush, the board has a very profound role to play in personnel. But, it’s not in making individual decisions about individual staff members (even key staff like principals or an assistant superintendent).
The board and superintendent have a mutual partnership where each plays a key role. If the partnership gets out of wack, the district will make unfortunate decisions. If the partnership is healthy and vital, the board will see an empowered staff working hard to deliver the vision articulated by the board.
Both board and community will see the results and celebrate the contribution of public education to the community’s vitality.