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Illinois School Board Journal
September-October 1999

Quality boards, quality education

by John J. Cassel

John J. Cassel is an IASB Field Services Director.

Meetings. Working in a group. Committees. Minutes. Agendas. Many people hate it. Some love it.

For better or for worse, it's what school boards do. Serving on a school board, by definition, is being part of a group. As much as individual school board members may want to make a contribution, the success of the enterprise is more related to group function than to individual capacity.

In a very real sense, a school board only exists when it is in session: unless they are acting as a board, school board members have no more authority than any citizen.

As a board, however, those seven citizens take on a significant role: they "sit in trust" for the entire community. That is, the community, in electing you and your fellow board members, has entrusted its most precious resources -- its children and its tax dollars -- to your care.

In almost all Illinois communities, the school board consists of seven people: a body large enough to represent the diversity of the community, yet small enough to sit down and work it out. Ideally, those seven people represent enough diversity to ensure that the entire community is indeed well represented.

Unfortunately, school boards -- in common with other groups -- all too often allow their wonderful diversity to become a stumbling block and an impediment to quality.

Sadly, some boards do not assure quality education, they block it. This sometimes occurs despite the best intentions of all members, and generally is as frustrating to the board members as it is to teachers, administrators and parents.

This article discusses two ways to make sure your school board is making a positive contribution. Those ways are: by making sure you are answering the right questions and by honoring diversity on the board.

The right question

Some tasks are better done by one person. Others are best accomplished by a group. Everyone has heard the quip: "a camel is a horse designed by a committee." Most of us have served on committees or work groups that produced disjointed, plodding, uncreative work. Most of us have been part of organizations where decision making and lines of authority are confused and unresponsive. Too often, the left hand knows not what the right hand is doing.

One of the primary principles of school board governance is that the day-to-day operations are best run by the superintendent. The superintendent may have an administrative team, may be collaborative and engage staff, parents, community -- but there is great value of having one set of eyes and one line of authority to make it all work.

However, schools are complex organizations that can fulfill their mission only if they are closely connected to their communities. Rarely can one individual capture the whole, especially in our complex and fast-moving world. To approach excellence, the district must be in touch with the multiple perspectives and needs of an entire community and each of its school-age citizens.

This is where school boards come in. With seven minds and seven pairs of eyes, the board will find within itself the wisdom to capture what's right for the particular community it serves. A board, with its multiplicity, can do this complex task better than any individual.

The power for the district is having both the centering of authority in the superintendent and the wisdom implicit in the diversity represented by the board.

To make it work requires a simple calculation. The board should do what is best done by seven. The superintendent should do what is best done by one. Because the board is in charge, it is incumbent on the board to be disciplined and to do the right stuff -- board work, not administrative work. Effective board work begins with answering the right questions.

John Carver, in Boards That Make A Difference, calls the right questions "ends." Ends are about what we want our schools to be, defining purpose, direction and the future. Ends are about the kind of graduates we want. Ends are about our mission and vision. Ends are about resources and goals.

Ends are very different from "means" -- programs, initiatives, personnel, purchasing, etc. -- which are most effectively done (or delegated) by the superintendent.

Honoring diversity

Once the board focuses on the right questions, members can bring their diverse viewpoints to the table to arrive at the best answers.

In a well-led district organization, everyone, including the board, will be on the same page. But the value of individual board members is that they bring different things to the table. Different perspectives, different concerns, different ways of approaching and living in the world. To make good decisions that hold together the complexity of our communities and our schools, the board needs to use its diversity -- not be held hostage by it.

We need to think about diversity in multiple ways. Because we increasingly live in a global village, the reality is that our communities are multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious.

Typically, the student body leads the way. Most systems struggle just to match the diversity of the student body with an equally diverse faculty and administration. In the same vein, school boards need to be attentive to all the voices in their community and ask who speaks for the various groups.

Of course, diversity exists at different levels. Even if overt diversity on the board is limited (for example, all members are the same race or economic stratum), there almost always is useful diversity which can be acknowledged and valued. These include:

A complex organization needs input from all these people, and more, if it is to thrive in our complex world. A successful organization uses its diversity to expand its capacity to make good decisions.

To accomplish that, the board can honor diversity and expand its capacity by simply following Stephen Covey's advice: "Seek first to understand and then to be understood."

Too often, communication is more about talking than about listening. Honoring diversity is about knowing that, to succeed, we need more perspectives than our own. Honoring diversity is about listening to those voices that we normally don't hear. Honoring diversity means understanding that the end is what matters -- not the particular means someone has chosen to achieve it.

Social science offers important information about group process and diversity. In perhaps the most interesting study, Watson (Academy of Management Journal, 1993, Vol. 36, November 3, pp. 590-607) hypothesized that "newly formed, culturally diverse groups" will have a harder time at the beginning but do better work in the long run. Culturally homogenous groups, on the other hand, will work together more easily but will "perform less effectively on complex problem solving." School boards which wish to honor diversity must take the time to create quality processes through board process policies, and must take a long term perspective. Creating a group in touch with its own diversity will assure better work on complex issues.

Honoring diversity also creates credibility. Do community members, parents and staff see the board as listening to and speaking for them? How can the organization move forward without the engagement of all the various stakeholders? Honoring diversity, both within the board and within the community, will increase the likelihood that the board will be seen as worthy of allegiance and support.

A way forward

By learning to work together, honoring each member's uniqueness, a board gains synergy -- that is, it adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Anything less will likely not be up to the challenge. How can a board capture this ever-elusive synergy? A few suggestions:

1) Intent. The board needs to focus on the key thing the district needs from it: direction. The board's role, once again, is to serve as trustee. Some board members see themselves as volunteers who are making a personal contribution to education. If volunteerism is the member's primary intention, perhaps that person should find a real volunteer assignment: band parent, reading aide, room parent. Volunteers make a contribution by what they "do." Board members, on the other hand, need to find satisfaction in playing out their role in the organization.

2) Process. Boards need to be attentive to process at every point. "What are we doing?" "Is it board work?" "How are we going to do this work?" Boards that jump immediately to discuss the content of an issue often miss the mark because they answer the wrong question or have an ill-conceived process.

Some boards are lucky in having one or more members who easily and naturally think about process and who keep them on track. If the board has a "process person" it should use this person as a precious resource. If the board does not have such a person, it should pause and force itself to answer the process question, even though this is hard and difficult work for many persons.

3) Process, again. Some boards merely serve as seven advisors to the superintendent. Their basic interaction is one-on-one, each member with the superintendent. The most synergy they can expect is one plus one equals three. Their meetings are short because they rarely work an issue over at the board table. A better way engages eight people in discussing the tough issues. Synergy becomes unlimited. Eight people, if they do it right, are connected to the whole community and the whole staff. They have access to the best literature and the best practice. Eight times eight can equal far more than sixty-four.

4) Relationships. It's a tough piece of reality, but board members are all people. Their interactions, their relationships are important. A wise board finds time to nurture and support relationships. A wise board knows it must move through forming, storming and norming to get to performing. A wise board takes the time to do it right. A wise board is protective of its time and relationships, partly because it can only deliver the goods through discipline and focus.

5) Expectations. Just as a vision for the district is key to its forward movement, a vision for the board is key to its success. What do we expect? Fussing and fighting? Or consensus and new ideas? Only if a board wants to make a quality contribution to education can it deliver the goods. All other expectations will degenerate into an authoritative group of managers fighting to lead a less than effective organization.

This is your invitation to step up as board members: always make sure you are answering the right questions and that you take advantage of and honor the diversity in your ranks.

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