What is your board's culture?

Do you recognize this?

In partnership with the community and its students,    <Our>   School District is committed to excellence by empowering and challenging all students to achieve their potential as life-long learners in an ever-changing global society.

My guess is that it is not much different from 90% of all school district mission statements in the US. Rarely committed to memory, sometimes read at the beginning of every school board meeting, it looks good on the district website. But can you point to evidence that it has any impact on student learning, or guides decision-making in either the central office or at the board table in any unique way?

Here in New Jersey, January means annual board reorganization. Regardless of when your board reorganizes, allow me to suggest another approach: address board culture before district mission, or even vision. Here’s why:

From my perspective into public education, as a service provider to K-12 school systems and as a board member, rarely do educational leaders view their district’s school board as playing a meaningful role in their efforts to move the organization from “good to great.” In fact, in many cases, the board is an obstacle to progress: worst case, there is political infighting between personal agendas and strong personalities. More often, there is not sufficient trust between board and leadership such that they can agree on a path forward. Then, there are unengaged boards, micro-managing boards, and overly-compliant boards that simply “rubber-stamp” the superintendent’s agenda. In all such cases, the board is outside of the process of continuous improvement, which to many superintendents is not a bad thing as long as the board effectively stays out of their way.

To make a lasting impression on the critical mission of the schools, boards of education must make a commitment to establishing a sustainable culture of its own – one that will survive changes in its membership and changes in leadership staff (the average tenure for a superintendent of schools in New Jersey is about three years!). Commit to these Three Big Ideas* for a lasting board culture:

1. A relentless focus on learning for all students as our central, unwavering purpose (mission) 
2. A collaborative culture and collective effort to support student - and adult – learning 
3. A results orientation to improve practice and drive continuous improvement 

Seems like an obvious set of principles, no? I can assure you, putting principle into practice is not as easy or straightforward as it seems. Drifting from a shared understanding of these critical elements of a high-performing education organization has resulted in boards of education being left out of (or taking themselves out of) the process of continuous improvements in relevant, 21st century student learning.

So as your board reorganizes itself, sure, you can recommit to the old standbys: more training on the board’s roles and responsibilities; another board performance evaluation; and, of course, “let’s update the strategic plan!” But when a school board commits itself to developing a culture built on these Three Big Ideas, it sets a powerful example and expectation for organizational excellence that soon reaches every school, every collaborative team, and every classroom** in the system.

* DuFour, R. and Fullan, M. (2013). Cultures built to last: Systemic PLCs at Work™. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press

** Eaker, R. and Keating, K. (2011). Every school, every team, every classroom: District leadership for growing Professional Learning Communities at Work™. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press