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If your school board learns to "put first things first," you and your board colleagues will have the satisfaction of providing dynamic leadership for a vital and effective school district. Ahh, you say, you've heard promises like this before. However, the reality about board leadership is that, collectively, you and your six fellow board members hold the key to effective board leadership in your hands. You need only discover how to turn the key to open the door to effectiveness.

The idea in this article is really a simple one. And, like most good ideas it's "stolen" -- that is, it's not a new idea, but has been extrapolated from the good thought of others, specifically Stephen Covey and colleagues.

In the spring of 1996, all IASB staff attended a Covey Leadership Center Workshop on time management. We came away with a renewed sense of how to get control of our lives and spend our time on things that matter most.

The program is based on the book, First Things First by Stephen Covey, Roger Merrill, and Rebecca Merrill (Simon and Schuster, 1994), which is well worth reading. You also can attend one of the center's workshops (800/680-6839 for a schedule and locations). Meanwhile, following are some ideas that can be applied to school boards.

The first step in managing our personal time, say Covey and the Merrills, is to be clear about what we want. As they put it:

Our struggle to put first things first can be characterized by the contrast between two powerful tools that direct us: the clock and the compass. The clock represents our commitments, appointments, schedules, goals, activities---what we do with, and how we manage our time. The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission, conscience, direction---what we feel is important and how we lead our lives...The struggle comes when we sense a gap between the clock and the compass--when what we do doesn't contribute to what is most important in our lives. (First Things First, page 19)

We believe that school boards - like individuals - need to focus more on the compass and less on the clock. Perhaps the most important task a school board can accomplish is to be clear about what it wants for the district. What is your district purpose? What are your district goals? What direction, if you will, is your "district compass" pointing?

A clear vision for the future of the district is key to board effectiveness. Many boards have created helpful vision or mission statements. Some have a written list of beliefs. These global statements should annually be prioritized into specific goals and action plans.

While it's essentially the board's task to lead the district in articulating a vision and purpose, you will want to listen carefully to others. Staff, students, community members, parents, business people -- all have important perceptions and ideas. The board's vision is always dynamic and changing. It changes with the ever emerging realities within the district and community. When new members join the board, the vision must be re-visited so that it reflects the new consensus of the board.

Creating a vision statement and goals is a task to be undertaken with considerable thought and care. If you need help with this step, contact your IASB field services director.

Having become clear about where you want to go, the key to effective board leadership is making sure all board activity contributes to what the board has agreed is important.

The central idea from First Things First is that the way you invest your time (personal, professional, or board time) can be divided into four quadrants, as shown by the following chart.

What kind of items fall into each quadrant of the Covey model? Following are some ideas. But the point for your board is to do your own sort--on the basis of your goals, and your vision, and what's important and urgent to you.

Quadrant I (Urgent, important)

• act on a recommendation to hire staff
• approve the budget
• consider a board resolution on pending legislation that requires quick action
• participate in student achievement awards

Quadrant II (Not urgent, important)

• review and assess hiring procedures for teaching staff
• discuss how new educational research, or emerging trends in education, will affect the district
• review progress toward the development of a long range financial plan
• consider the data to be collected on student discipline

Quadrant III (Urgent, not important).

• approve bills
• approve financial reports
• act on recommendation regarding continuing contracted services
• consider bids for a new copier

These items need to be done now, but come with clear administrative recommendation and are not worthy of extensive board attention. Many Quadrant III items can be expedited through a consent agenda.

Quadrant IV (Not urgent, not important)

• hear a routine report from a principal on student discipline
• consider whether popcorn should be allowed in the gym
• hear a report on student buying patterns in the cafeteria
• discuss a rumor regarding a teacher

Routine reports can be made available in written form; they don't need to take up board time. Many Quadrant IV items are important matters for administrators to attend to, but require only routine action from the board.

Too often, we allow ourselves to be trapped in Quadrants III and IV. We do things that seem urgent--even though, upon reflection, they are not important. Or we putter with things that are neither important and nor urgent, simply because we are not disciplined about how we allocate our time (or create our board agendas). The trick is to move our attention from Quadrant III and Quadrant IV activities to those items which are important but not urgently pressing at us (Quadrant II).

Persons who have adopted Covey's insights in their personal and professional lives will testify to the power of spending more time in Quadrant II. Taking the time to do important things, even when they are not urgent and thus demand discipline and purpose, will pay significant rewards.

Tim Holt, the Director of Board Team Development, with the Kentucky School Board Association, suggests a number of common board questions and complaints.

Why do our meetings last so long?

When can we talk about students and learning?

We never have time to really discuss things.

I brought that up when I first came on board, and we still haven't done anything about it.

These same concerns are voiced by board members all across Illinois. Most school board members were elected because they care about students and education. But the reality is, most boards find themselves preoccupied with bills and buildings and other seemingly urgent, but ultimately less important matters. They never get around to discussing the issues that drove them to take on a demanding unpaid job.

None of this is to imply any of the items involved with the running of a quality school district are not important. However, the key question is: what is important for the board's attention? What matters will contribute directly to bringing the board's vision into reality?

Adopting the "First things First" model at your board table will help you focus your attention on those matters. You will find it helpful to use the quadrant model to think about your board agenda.

As you study agenda items with this model in mind, you will find that clearly you need to attend to Quadrant I items - these are items that are pressing and must be dealt with now. But where will you spend the rest of your limited and precious time? Quadrant III might be expedited in a consent agenda. Quadrant IV contains the kinds of items that, if ignored, will resolve themselves.

The point is to move your attention and energy to Quadrant II. One, perhaps unexpected, benefit: the harder you work in Quadrant II, the fewer crises, miscues and screwups you'll need to deal with in Quadrant I.

Thinking carefully about what should appear on the board's agenda may have significant implications for the board's relationship with the superintendent. Too many board meetings are dominated by the need to approve administration actions - in some instances actions already taken.

We propose, rather, boards meet to determine goals and monitor progress towards those goals. Doing so will take you out of the area of micromanagement -- that is, the day-to-day decisions and actions that you hire the superintendent and other administrators to accomplish. And, it will free you to consider those matters that can only be determined by the school board -- the issues that inspired you to run for office in the first place.

If your board feels uncomfortable allowing administrators the latitude to handle such matters, by the way, it is a sign that you need to work on the superintendent/board relationship.

If these ideas sound promising to you, following are some steps might help you get started:

1. Goals: Determine clear and focused goals for the district. Direct your superintendent to craft action plans for each.
2. Think about Quadrants: Review your last three board meetings and consider which discussions seemed urgent at the time, but, with hindsight, were not worthy of significant board time. What circumstances brought these discussions to the board table?
3. Focus on Quadrant II: Build an "annual agenda calendar" which will serve as a framework to guide the superintendent and board president as they construct each individual agenda.
4. Detail urgent items (superintendent evaluation, budget approval, etc.) as well as non-urgent but important items, such as board self-evaluation, goal setting, review of progress toward goals, etc.
5. Regularly: Engage in board conversation about how the board should be spending its time to be optimally effective.

Be clear about what you want and then spend your energies in pursuit of those goals. It is such a simple idea, but it can help you feel good about your work and achieve remarkable results.

Putting first things first at the board table is a strategy that can help school boards become more effective and result in better schooling for the students of Illinois.

John Allen and John Cassel are IASB field services directors.