Effective School Boards Framework

Implementation Guide

Why A Framework

Student outcomes don’t change until adult behaviors change. These words describe the commitment that effective school boards make to the students they serve — a commitment that obligates the school board to constantly evaluate its own behavior and to make whatever changes are required to better fulfill on what’s possible for its students. This is the intention of the effective school boards framework: to provide a clear, national standard school boards can use to interrogate the extent to which there is alignment between their adult behaviors and improvements in student outcomes — what students know and are able to do.

This framework, designed as a continuous improvement tool to support a school board’s implementation of effective practices, is based on the accumulated research literature on effective governance practices and the accumulated experiences of dozens of school board members and superintendents from across the nation. That research and experience reveals five continuous improvement practices of effective school boards:

Focus Mindset: operating from a student outcomes-focused mindset that inspires adult behavior change

Clarify Priorities: clarifying the community’s priorities — both its vision for what students know/are able to do and its non-negotiable values

Monitor Progress: monitoring the improvements the school system is making relative to the community’s priorities

Align Resources: aligning the school system’s resources with the community’s priorities

Communicate Results: transparently sharing about governance and the results the school system created relative to the community’s priorities.

While these five practices sound like they would be normal, common sense behaviors for school boards, the reality across the nation is quite different. After coding hundreds of hours of school board meetings from every corner of the US, our findings suggest that most school boards behave — unintentionally — in the exact opposite manner. Rather than being intensely focused on improving student outcomes, the vast majority of school boards have become obsessively focused on tinkering with adult inputs. For the average school board, it is likely that most months less than 5% of its time is invested into monitoring progress relative to what students should know and be able to do.

In practice, it requires tremendous effort to transform adult behaviors — everyone loves the idea of change, but most people prefer that others do the changing. The more clear and simple the path is to student outcomes-aligned behaviors, the greater the likelihood that school boards will invest the required effort to change its practices. This is the benefit of a framework that allows school boards to score where they are today, and to quarterly re-score themselves to identify areas of growth and areas for improvement.

It’s also important to clarify what this framework is not good for and not trying to do. This framework doesn’t tell school boards what their vision should be, just that it should have one, that it should make it plain, that it should monitor progress toward it, that it should align resources to it, and that it should communicate the school system’s results relative to the vision. This framework doesn’t tell school boards what their values should be. This framework doesn’t identify what the school boards legal obligations are — those vary too broadly from state to state — only that it should accomplish its legal obligations in a manner that is as aligned with the vision and values of the community as possible. This framework doesn’t advocate for or against state-imposed accountability systems, but instead argues that school boards must create their own performance monitoring systems aligned to the community’s vision and values — regardless of whether those match or contradict statewide systems.

About the Framework Practices

Understanding the framework’s five practice areas is an important step toward implementing them. Each practice is accompanied by a set of school board behaviors that exemplify that area. To be of maximum utility, the behaviors associated with each practice area are generally observable during school board meetings – even members of the public should be able to easily identify whether or not the practices are being put into action.

To Focus Mindset requires that the school board leads from the stance that school systems only exist to improve student outcomes and that student outcomes don’t change until adult behaviors change, starting with the school board. Inside of these two views of the world, the school board becomes so intensely focused on improving student outcomes by changing its own behavior that it becomes impossible for the school board to be distracted by unaligned adult inputs or be seduced into creating a culture of blame. By definition, if a school board is not engaged in continuous improvement routines or spends its time blaming anyone for lower than promised student performance, it is not doing the work to Focus Mindset.

To Clarify Priorities requires that the school board listens for the community’s vision for what students should know and be able to do, listens for the community’s non-negotiable values that must be honored while in pursuit of the vision, writes down the vision in the form of SMART goals about student outcomes, and writes down the values in the form of guardrails that are prohibitions on superintendent authority. By definition, if the school board has not adopted 1-5 goals and 1-5 guardrails for which the community experiences a sense of ownership, it has not done the work to Clarify Priorities.

To Monitor Progress requires that the school board work collaboratively with the superintendent to develop a multi-year calendar that describes which data for the goals and guardrails will be discussed during which months, that the superintendent brings forward reports in accordance with the calendar, and that the school board invests at least 50% of its time each month into having a conversation with the superintendent about what worked, what didn’t worked, and what’s happening next. By definition, if the school board has not adopted a monitoring calendar, has not received monitoring reports from the superintendent, and isn’t increasing the percentage of its time invested into progress monitoring up to a minimum of half of its total meeting minutes each month, then it is not doing the work to Monitor Progress.

To Align Resources requires that the school board minimize its time focused on anything that is not directly related to the goals, the guardrails, or legally required, and that when actions are required of the school board that those decisions only evaluate the extent of alignment between the the decision being made and the goals/guardrails. By definition, if the school board has not redesigned its meetings to focus at least 50% of its time on monitoring progress toward the goals, and if the school board uses any criteria other than goals/guardrails to determine adoption of budgets, policies, superintendent evaluation, and everything else, then it is not doing the work to Align Resources.

To Communicate Results requires that the school board makes school system operations transparent and observable, and that the school board regularly arranges time for two-way conversations with the community about its vision and values, identify dates each year when it will report back to the community about progress toward the vision-aligned goals and adherence to the values-aligned guardrails, and provide training to the community regarding the school board’s use of goals and guardrails to govern the school system on its behalf. By definition, if the school board has not adopted a community interaction calendar that includes listening dates, reporting dates, and training dates, then it is not doing the work to Communicate Results.

About the Framework Instrument

It’s one thing to understand the behaviors associated with each practice, but for school boards to have the best shot at continuous improvement over time, they need an integrity of implementation instrument that they can use to score their performance as a school board. In the absence of an integrity instrument, assertions about school board performance typically devolve into political rhetoric: if you like what the school board is doing at the moment, you might say that the school board is, “effective and functional” and if you don’t like what the school board is doing right now, they’re “ineffective and dysfunctional.” But this subjectivity both obscures actual school board performance and inspires school board members to calibrate their behaviors around whatever adult inputs are popular, not around what research and experience actually identify as effective at creating the context for improved student outcomes.

This phenomenon – school board members being incentivized to focus on adult inputs rather than student outcomes – is at the heart of why an effective school board framework is needed and why an integrity of implementation instrument is needed to help school boards measure their improvement against that framework.

The five practices of effective school boards are most beneficial when they are initially implemented in chronological order. For example, there’s limited value to having great goal monitoring processes in place if the school board has never adopted goals to monitor. For that reason, the five practice areas are presented in chronological implementation order – first Focus Mindset, then Clarify Priorities, and so forth – and within each practice area, the behaviors are generally organized in chronological implementation order from the left to the right.

Using the Framework Instrument

This instrument is best used by the full governing team – the school board and superintendent – with guidance from a coach specifically certified in its application. After receiving an orientation to the framework, each individual school board member and the superintendent should give the school board a score for each practice area. When the score for each practice area is added together, this will reveal an overall score between 0 and 100, where a 0 indicates that the school board is ineffectively focusing on its goals for improving student outcomes and a 100 which indicates that the school board is highly effective at focusing on its goals for improving student outcomes. After each member of the governing team have scored the school board individually, then the coach will lead the governing team collectively through a process of scoring the school board for the first time. This will create the school board’s starting point data which, in addition to providing a measurable score, provides the school board with clarity about its strengths and weaknesses relative to being an effective school board.

Once a starting point has been set, the school board should schedule time during a public meeting every three months to go through this process again as a means of self evaluating over time. Ideally each quarter the school board’s focus on improving student outcomes meaningfully increases. When using the instrument to conduct an evaluation, most indicators should be evaluated for the previous three month period unless indicated otherwise. Indicators that are about training and listening should generally be evaluated for the previous thirty-six month period unless indicated otherwise.

It is typical to go from a score of 0 to a score of 80+ over the course of two years, but only with the aid of a coach certified in this work. School boards that attempt this work without the support of a coach almost always fail; the adult behavior changes required are simply too great.

Framework Instrument

Administrative Policy: Policy and procedures set by the superintendent for the purpose of clarifying the day to day standard operations. [ see Governance Policy definition ]

Adult Outcomes: A measure of school system results that are not student results; outcomes that are not student outcomes. [ see Outcomes, Student Outcomes definitions ]

Adult Outputs: The adult experiences resulting from a particular set of inputs that are usually knowable in the midst of a cycle and that are a measure of the adults’ role in the implementation of the program or strategy. Outputs that are not student outputs. [ see Outputs, Student Outputs definitions ]

Agenda Diet: The process of reviewing and modifying the school board’s agenda and monthly calendar so that student outcomes are the focus for at least 50% of the time, information covered in school board meetings is transparently available, and so that the length and frequency of school board meetings don’t make it impossible for community members to observe the school board’s work. [ see Policy Diet definition ]

Annual Targets: Goal/interim goal ending points for each year leading up to the ending dates.

Board-Authorized Public Meeting: Any non-privileged meeting authorized by the Board or Board Chair including, but not limited to, Board workshops, Board hearings, and Board committees. Legally mandated hearings are exempted from this definition. Trainings led by a Coach certified in the effective school boards framework may be exempted from this definition. [ see Board Work definition ]

Board Self Evaluation: The process that the board undertakes to track its progress toward becoming more focused on its goals for student outcomes using the ESBF instrument or a similar research-informed instrument. Boards that have currently scored lower than 80 on this instrument should self-evaluate quarterly; otherwise they should evaluate annually.

Board Work: Items that are discussed and/or acted on during Board-authorized public meetings because either state or federal law/rule requires the Board to do so or because the items directly pertain to the Board’s adopted goals or guardrails. Items that are not legally required and that the Board has not designated as Board work through the Board’s goals or guardrails are, by default, Superintendent work. [ see Board-authorized Public Meeting, Superintendent Work definitions ]

Community Engagement: Time invested by the Board in hosting two-way conversations between the Board and community members about the community’s vision and values. [ see Community Outreach definition ]

Community Outreach: Time invested by the Board in participating in two-way conversation opportunities between the Board and community members about the community’s vision and values. [ see Community Engagement definition ]

Consent Agenda: Sometimes referred to as a Consent Calendar, this section of a school board’s meeting agenda allows the school board to vote on multiple items at once with the understanding that all board members are already in consensus regarding the listed items. The intention of using a consent agenda is to be able to better align the school board’s use of time with its goals and guardrails by minimizing time spent on routine items for which there is already a consensus to approve them. [ see Consent-Eligible Items definition ]

Consent-Eligible Items: Matters on the Board agenda that include, but that are not limited to, personnel actions, contract renewals, previous meeting minutes, policy updates, construction amendments, non-monitoring administrative reports, committee reports, enrollment updates, and regular financial reports where financial activities remained within budgetary parameters. [ see Board-authorized Public Meeting, Board Work, Consent Agenda definitions ]

Customers: The organization’s recipients of services and/or transactional beneficiaries – such as students, parents, and staff – for whom the staff is better positioned to address and/or resolve issues in a timely and effective manner. In a school system, customers and owners can be the same people, and therefore care must be taken to distinguish customer issues from owner issues. [ see Owner definition ]

Ending Date: The month/year by when the goal will reach the ending point. In goal setting, the ending date can be no less than one and no more than five years away. The ending date is often represented by the ‘Z’ in sample goals: “the measure will move from W% on X to Y% by Z.” [ see Ending Point, Goal Setting, SMART definitions ]

Ending Point: The goal’s desired number/percentage at the time of the ending date. The ending point is often represented by the ‘Y’ in sample goals: “the measure will move from W% on X to Y% by Z.” [ see Ending Date, Goal Setting, SMART definitions ]

Goals: Policy statements that are SMART, that are student outcomes focused, and that describe the Board’s top priorities during the timeline for which they are adopted. The first priority for resource allocation in the school system should be toward achieving the Board’s goals. Once those allocations are complete, remaining resources may be allocated in a manner that addresses the additional needs and obligations of the school system. Goals generally are set for a three to five year period. Goals generally take the form of “student outcome will increase from W on X date to Y by Z date.” [ see Goal Examples section; see SMART, Student Outcome definitions ]

Goal Monitoring: Time invested by the Board in reviewing, discussing and/or accepting/not accepting goal monitoring reports. No fewer than 50% of the minutes spent in Board-authorized public meetings should be invested in goal monitoring or goal setting. Debating and voting on Board items is never a form of goal monitoring. [see Board-authorized Public Meeting, Goal, Goal Setting, Interim Goal, Monitoring definitions ]

Goal Setting: Time invested by the Board in reviewing, discussing, and/or selecting goals. No fewer than 50% of the minutes spent in Board-authorized public meetings should be invested in goal monitoring or goal setting. [ see Board-authorized Public Meeting, Goal, Goal Monitoring, Interim Goal, Monitoring definitions ]

Governance Team: All Board Members and the Superintendent. The Superintendent is not a member of the Board, but is a member of the governing team. The governance team will also include other direct reports of the school board if those individuals serve in an executive-level role administering the school system (e.g. in some states, the chief business officer or chief financial officer are require to report to the school board by law).

Governance Policy: Policy and procedures set by the school board for the purpose of clarifying the community’s vision (goals), clarifying the community’s values (guardrails), clarifying the school board’s relationship to its direct reports (delegation), and clarifying the school board’s ways of operating internally (governing). [ see Administrative Policy, Policies About Delegation, Policies About Goals, Policies About Governing, Policies About Guardrails definitions ]

Guardrail: An operational action or class of actions, usually strategic not tactical, the Superintendent may not use or allow in pursuit of the school system’s student outcome goals. Guardrails are based on the community’s values and should not undermine the school system’s ability to meet the goals — though guardrails will often require the Superintendent to accomplish the goals in a different way. [ see Examples section; see Guardrail Monitoring, Guardrail Setting, Interim Guardrail, Theory of Action definitions ]

Guardrail Monitoring: Time invested by the Board in reviewing, discussing and/or accepting/not accepting guardrail monitoring reports. [ see Guardrail, Interim Guardrail, Monitoring definitions ]

Guardrail Setting: Time invested by the Board in reviewing, discussing, and/or selecting guardrails. [ see Guardrail, Interim Guardrail, Theory of Action definitions ]

Implementation Instruments: Measures that describe the quality of effort that goes into execution of inputs or outputs. This document is an example of an implementation instrument for the governing team’s outputs.

Inputs: Resources and activities invested in a particular program or strategy that are usually knowable at the beginning of a cycle and that are a measure of effort applied. [ see Outcomes, Outputs definitions ]

Interim Goals: A leading measure of progress that can be expressed as a number or a percentage and that, when improving, increases the likelihood that the goal will be achieved. While goals are outcomes, interim goals are generally outputs. Each goal will have between one and three interim goals. Interim goals are SMART. [ see Goal Examples section ]

Interim Guardrail: A measure of progress toward a defined guardrail that can be expressed as a number or percentage. [ see Guardrail Examples section ]

Knowledge: The interwoven network of all information a person has absorbed; all of the things about which someone has gained understanding. The framework identifies knowledge as the least influential lever for inspiring adult behavior change. [ see Mindset, Skill definitions ]

Leadership Evaluation: The Board conducting routine self-evaluations and Superintendent evaluations. It is recommended to include months during which leadership evaluation will take place on the monitoring calendar.

Measure: The instrument, assessment, or other means used to quantify something. In the context of goals, this is often an evaluation of student performance such a school system or state exam. [ see Goal Setting, SMART definition ]

Mindset: One’s view of the world; their way of making meaning of the circumstances occurring around them. The framework identifies mindset as the most influential lever for inspiring adult behavior change. [ see Knowledge, Skill definitions ]

Monitoring: A Board process that includes the Board receiving monitoring reports on the timeline indicated by the monitoring calendar, discussing them, and choosing to accept or not accept them. The intention of monitoring is to determine whether reality matches the Board’s goals / guardrails.

Monitoring Calendar: A Board-adopted multi-year schedule that describes months during which goals, interim goals, guardrails, and interim guardrails are reported to the Board.

Monitoring Report: A report that provides evidence of progress to the Board regarding their adopted goals and guardrails. Each monitoring report must contain 1) the goal/guardrail being monitored, 2) the interim goals/guardrails showing the previous three reporting periods, the current reporting period, and the annual and ending point numbers/percentages, 3) the Superintendent’s evaluation of performance (“red/yellow/green” or “on track/partially off/off track” or “compliant/partially compliant/non-compliant” or whatever other status labels the school system uses for progress monitoring), and 4) supporting documentation that shows the evidence and describes any needed next steps.

Outcomes: The impact of the program or strategy that is usually knowable at the end of a cycle and that is a measure of the effect on the intended beneficiary. [ see Adult Outcomes, Inputs, Outputs, Student Outcomes definitions ]

Outputs: The result of a particular set of inputs that is usually knowable in the midst of a cycle and that is a measure of the implementation of the program or strategy. [ see Inputs, Outcomes definitions ]

Owners: The organization’s moral and legal authority – such as residents and taxpayers – for whom the board is better positioned to address and/or resolve issues in a timely and effective manner. In a school system, owners and customers can be the same people, and therefore care must be taken to distinguish customer issues from owner issues. [ see Customers definition ]

Policies About Delegation: Effective Board policies answer one of four questions: what’s the community’s vision, what are the community’s values, what’s the Board’s relationship with itself / members / owners, and what’s the Board’s relationship with employees who report directly to the Board. Policies about delegation are about the Board’s relationship with its direct reports and the nature of the authority handed to the employee(s) by the Board. [ see Governance Policy, Policies About Goals, Policies About Governing, Policies About Guardrails definitions ]

Policies About Goals: Effective Board policies answer one of four questions: what’s the community’s vision, what are the community’s values, what’s the Board’s relationship with itself / members / owners, and what’s the Board’s relationship with employees who report directly to the Board. Policies about goals are about the Board representing the community’s vision for what students should know and be able to do. [ see Governance Policy, Policies About Delegation, Policies About Governing, Policies About Guardrails definitions ]

Policies About Governing: Effective Board policies answer one of four questions: what’s the community’s vision, what are the community’s values, what’s the Board’s relationship with itself / members / owners, and what’s the Board’s relationship with employees who report directly to the Board. Policies about governing are about the Board’s relationship with itself and expected Board practices, with Board Members and expected individual behaviors, and with the legal/moral owners of the school system – the community. [ see Governance Policy, Policies About Delegation, Policies About Goals, Policies About Guardrails definitions ]

Policies About Guardrails: Effective Board policies answer one of four questions: what’s the community’s vision, what are the community’s values, what’s the Board’s relationship with itself / members / owners, and what’s the Board’s relationship with employees who report directly to the Board. Policies about guardrails are about the Board representing the community’s non-negotiable values that must be honored through all of the school system’s actions. [ see Governance Policy, Policies About Delegation, Policies About Goals, Policies About Governing definitions ]

Policy Diet: The process of reviewing and modifying the school board’s policy manual so that student outcomes can be more readily focused on, information covered in governance policy is transparently available, the length of the governance policies don’t make it impossible for community members to observe and understand the school board’s policies (as distinct from the administration’s policies), and the school board can actually monitor all of the governance policies at least once during the length of time of board member terms. [ see Agenda Diet, Policies About Delegation, Policies About Goals, Policies About Governing, Policies About Guardrails definitions ]

Population: The group of students who will be impacted and/or who are being measured. [ see Goal Setting, SMART definition ]

Skill: One’s ability to utilize the knowledge that they have gained; the capacity for practical application of what is known. The framework identifies skill as the second most influential lever for inspiring adult behavior change. [ see Mindset, Skill definitions ]

SMART: An acronym for “specific, measurable, attainable, results-focused, time-bound.” Goals and interim goals partially accomplish SMART-ness by having a specific measure, population, starting points, ending points, starting dates, and ending dates. [ see Ending Date, Ending Point, Measure, Population, Starting Date, Starting Point definitions ]

Starting Date: The month/year that the goal is set. The starting date is often represented by the ‘X’ in sample goals: “the measure will move from W% on X to Y% by Z.” [ see Goal Setting, SMART, Starting Point definitions ]

Starting Point: The goal’s current number/percentage at the time of adoption. The starting point is often represented by the ‘W’ in sample goals: “the measure will move from W% on X to Y% by Z.” [ see Goal Setting, SMART, Starting Date definitions ]

Self Evaluation: The process of a person or team examining the extent to which their behaviors have aligned with their intentions. The effective school board framework’s implementation integrity instrument can be used by school boards as a quarterly and/or annual self evaluation tool.

Student Outcomes: A measure of school system results that are student results rather than adult results; outcomes that are a measure of what students know or are able to do. Student outcomes are distinct from adult outcomes. [ see Adult Outcomes, Goals, Outcomes definitions ]

Student Outputs: The student experiences resulting from a particular set of inputs that are usually knowable in the midst of a cycle and that are a measure of the students’ role in implementation of the program or strategy. Student outputs are distinct from adult outputs. [ see Adult Outputs, Outputs definition ]

Superintendent Evaluation: The annual process that the board undertakes to determine whether the superintendent has met the annual targets they have set toward achieving the board’s goals and guardrails. [ see Goals, Guardrails definitions ]

Superintendent Work: Items that are not legally required and that the Board has not designated as Board work through the Board’s goals or guardrails. [ see Board Work definition ]

Theory of Action: A narrowly defined, specific set of high level strategies to which all school system inputs and outputs must be aligned. Unlike other guardrails, theories of action do not have interim guardrails. A useful theory of action will provide clarification regarding which reasonable strategies should and shouldn’t be used. Said differently, if a proposed theory of action is so vague or broad that it doesn’t have the effect of clearly excluding strategies that would otherwise be reasonable to use, then it’s not a useful theory of action. [ see Examples section; see Guardrail definition ]

Time Focused On Student Outcomes: This indicator includes periods when the Board is either setting goals or monitoring progress toward its goals. This does not include guardrail setting or monitoring, or any adult input-focused activities. [ see Goal Monitoring, Goal Setting, Monitoring definitions ]

Time, Talent, & Treasure: These are the fundamental resources that all school systems have at their disposal. Alignment of these resources with the Board’s goals and guardrails creates a greater likelihood of the accomplishment of the goals and guardrails. Conversely, if the Board is not increasingly focusing its influence over the school system’s time, talent, and treasure on accomplishment of the goals and adherence to the guardrails, it is actively disincentivizing the school system to generate alignment as well. Typical Board-appropriate training topics for time alignment include time use evaluation, agenda evaluation, committee diet, policy diet; for talent alignment include superintendent evaluation, Board self evaluation, ethics/conflicts of interest; and for treasure alignment include four policy types, budget adoption, board meeting item adoption.

Values: The shared understanding of what the community considers important but that is not the vision. Where the vision describes what the community wants to see happen, values describe what the community does not want to see happen. Values describe protections the community wants to see put into place. It is not appropriate for the Board to allow the community’s values to be violated, even if doing so would support the accomplishment of the vision. The values are most often expressed as a guardrail or a theory of action. Guardrails generally are set for a three to five year period; theories of action generally are set for a five to ten year period.

Vision: The shared understanding of what the community ultimately desires to accomplish for all students. Where values describe what the community does not want to see, vision describes what the community does want to see happen. Vision describes the direction the community wants to see the school system go. A vision is most often expressed as an aspirational policy statement that describes what the Board understands the community’s desire for the future to be. Vision statements generally are set for a five to ten year period.

Voting: Time invested by the Board in debating and voting on any item. Unless indicated elsewhere in this document, these activities are never a form of goal monitoring or guardrail monitoring.

Books

Great On Their Behalf: Why School Boards Fail, How Yours Can Become Effective, airick journey crabill: https://www.amazon.com/dp/154453759X/

A Framework for School Governance, Rick Maloney: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999419307/

The 4 Disciplines of Execution, Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, & Jim Huling: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FLODJ8/

Boards That Make A Difference, John Carver: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008L01JWO/

Good To Great, Jim Collins: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058DRUV6/

Leadership and Self-Deception, The Arbinger Institute: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1523097809/

Research & Articles

Roles and Responsibilities of Local School Board Members in Relation to Student Achievement, Mary Delagardelle (2006): https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2504&context=rtd

The Impact of School Board Governance on Academic Achievement in Diverse States, Michael Ford (2013): http://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1334&context=etd

The Relationship Between School Board Governance Behaviors and Student Achievement, Ivan J. Lorentzen (2013): http://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2406&context=etd

School Board Governance and Student Achievement: School Board Members’ Perceptions of Their Behaviors and Beliefs, Bobbie Plough (2014): https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1028871.pdf

School Board Governance: The Times They are A-Changin’, Paul Johnson (2011): https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1555458911413887

School Boards and Student Achievement: The Relationship between Previously Identified School Board Characteristics and Improved Student Learning, Jonathon Holmen (2016): https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?&article=1013&context=soe_etd

Do School Board Governance Best Practices Improve District Performance? Testing the Key Work of School Boards in Wisconsin, Michael Ford & Douglas Ihrke (2015): https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2014.982293

Pennsylvania Public School Board Effectiveness: Does It Influence Student Performance?, Aiko Maurer: https://knowledge.library.iup.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2365&context=etd

A Comparison of Missouri School Board Best Practices Based on School District Size, Level of Success, and Geographic Region, Brian Sims (2012): https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/33107/research.pdf

School District Leadership That Works, J. Timothy Waters & Robert Marzano (2006): https://www.mcrel.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/McREL-research-paper_-Sept2006_District-Leadership-That-Works-Effect-of-Superintendent-Leadership-on-Student-Achievement-.pdf

Exploring the Association between Board and Organizational Performance in Nonprofit Organizations, William Brown (2005): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/nml.71

Eight Characteristics of Effective School Boards, National School Board Association (2011): http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Public-education/Eight-characteristics-of-effective-school-boards

The Lighthouse Inquiry: School Board/Superintendent Team Behaviors in School Districts with Extreme Differences in Student Achievement, Iowa Association of School Boards (2000): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234770383_The_Lighthouse_Inquiry_School_BoardSuperintendent_Team_Behaviors_in_School_Districts_with_Extreme_Differences_in_Student_Achievement

The Role of School Boards in Improving Student Achievement, Washington State School Directors’ Association: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED521566.pdf

The School Board Role in Creating the Conditions for Student Achievement, California School Boards Association: https://www.csba.org/GovernanceAndPolicyResources/~/media/CSBA/Files/GovernanceResources/Reports/201705BoardResearchReport.ashx

Policy Governance Consistency Framework, International Policy Governance Association: https://www.policygovernanceassociation.org/assets/documents/principles-and-model-consistency-framework-2014.pdf

School Board Quality Balanced Governance Report, Thomas Alsbury: https://aasb.org/wp-content/uploads/ACADEMY_HO-10-Balanced-Governance-External-Eval-Sample-2015.pdf

Building A Board That Works, U.S. Department of State: https://www.state.gov/m/a/os/41119.htm

Does School Board Leadership Matter?, Arnold F. Shober & Michael T. Hartney: https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/Does-School-Board-Leadership-Matter-FINAL.pdf

Is Discord Detrimental? Using Institutional Variation to Identify the Impact of Public Governing Board Conflict on Outcomes, Jason A. Grissom: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275300281_Is_Discord_Detrimental_Using_Institutional_Variation_to_Identify_the_Impact_of_Public_Governing_Board_Conflict_on_Outcomes

The Democratic Deficit in U.S. Education Governance, Vladimir Kogan, et al (2020): http://glenn.osu.edu/educational-governance/papers/papers/KLP_deficit.pdf

ABOUT GOAL MONITORING

What is Goal Monitoring?

Too often in public education, leaders do not pay attention to what’s working and what’s not working. The result can be a revolving door of initiatives / programs / silver bullets that drain resources, frustrate staff, and fail students. Breaking this cycle requires having clearly agreed upon data, a predictable cadence of reviewing the data to see what’s working/not working, and the expectation that this information impacts what happens next. This is the purpose of monitoring. Goal monitoring is a conversation between the school board and superintendent that provides boards the opportunity to evaluate the alignment between the community’s vision for student outcomes (goals) and current student performance/growth (reality). While goals and reality may not match perfectly, it only becomes problematic when there is no evidence of student growth. And even if students aren’t yet growing and making progress, that’s only catastrophic if the superintendent doesn’t have sufficiently aggressive strategies in place for helping students make progress.

How is Goal Monitoring beneficial?

In addition to clarifying student and superintendent performance, monitoring – when done well – confers several other organizational benefits:

Lead by Example: What happens in the boardroom is more likely to be echoed in the classroom. Board behavior sets the culture for an institution. If board members want a culture where teachers are open and reflective in their craft, they set the stage for that by demonstrating what it looks like for the board and superintendent to be open and reflective – grounded in student outcomes data – in their craft as well.

Clarify Strategies: When the board receives monitoring reports from the superintendent, the report should be at a 6th grade level and include how the superintendent will respond to the data. If the data says things are slightly off track, the superintendent’s strategy should reflect that. If the data says that performance is completely off track, the superintendent’s strategy should reflect the urgency that the current reality demands.

Communicate Expectations: By investing at least 50% of the board’s time each month into monitoring progress toward the vision, the board makes clear what the priorities of the entire organization are expected to be. This is a powerful tool for creating organizational alignment.

Formative Evaluation: With each monitoring report the board is conducting a micro assessment of superintendent performance which creates an opportunity for the superintendent to make adjustments. As a continuous improvement strategy, providing this regularly recurring feedback loop is a superior approach to the outdated concept of merely conducting annual performance evaluations.

BEFORE GOAL MONITORING

Once SMART goals about student outcomes have been adopted, effective goal monitoring requires four main ingredients: monitoring calendar, monitoring report, superintendent participation, board member participation.

Effective Monitoring Calendars

Before school boards can begin effective monitoring, they should adopt a 36-60 month schedule that describes which goals will be monitored during which month. The school board will typically have the superintendent draft a calendar since the administration knows when student performance data is freshly available throughout the year. Nevertheless, it remains the school board’s monitoring calendar, not the superintendents. Qualities to look for include:

It should span the entire length of the goals – if the goals are five year long, the calendar should be five years long as well

It should include all of the school board’s goals and guardrails

It often includes all board trainings, board-led community trainings, board-led community listenings, board self evaluations, board-led superintendent evaluations, and statutory votes

It should schedule each goal to be monitored at least four times throughout the year and each guardrail to be monitored at least one time per year

It should schedule one or two interim goals to be monitored each month, no less and definitely no more than three

It can schedule as many interim guardrails to be monitored during a month as the school board wants

It should never suggest that goal monitoring reports be placed on the consent agenda

It may suggest that guardrail monitoring reports can be placed on the consent agenda

It should clarify that school boards will monitor goals during every month of the year that the school board meets

Effective Monitoring Reports

Here are four qualities to ask about the 1-5 page monitoring report before the school board can begin progress monitoring (if the answer to any of these is “no”, hand the report back to the Superintendent and have them complete it before proceeding – likely at the next regularly scheduled board meeting):

The Goal: Does it clearly show which specific goal / interim goal is being monitored?

The Data: Does it clearly show data for the 3 previous reporting periods (preferably on a line graph)? Does it clearly show the current reporting period? Does it clearly show the target reporting periods (annual targets and deadline target)?

The Interpretation: Does it clearly show the Superintendent’s understanding of system performance relative to the goal?

The Evidence & Plan: Does it clearly show supporting documentation that evidences the Superintendent’s understanding of system performance? If the school system is not at target or the Superintendent’s understanding of system performance indicates implementation is not on track, does the monitoring report clearly describe any needed next steps?

Effective Board Member Participation

Goal monitoring, like school board governance in general, is not always intuitive. It is easy to inadvertently conduct monitoring in an ineffective manner. Here are a few guidelines to follow to increase the likelihood of effectiveness:

Do Your Homework: Board members should arrive at board meetings having already read the monitoring report, having already shared technical and tactical questions with the superintendent, and having already come up with at least three or four questions each regarding the monitoring report (see During Goal Monitoring below).

Understanding Reality: The desired result of monitoring is to understand the current reality for your students as compared to the vision you’ve adopted for them (goals). Whether you enjoy the current reality isn’t the point of monitoring; whether or not you fully know the current reality is.

Keep the Conversation Going: If the superintendent presents a monitoring report that is missing the prerequisites (see Before Goal Monitoring below) or that fails to clarify for board members the extent to which reality matches the goals, consider tabling the conversation and giving the superintendent a chance to fix it and re-offer it at a subsequent meeting, instead of choosing not to accept it and ending the discussion.

No Gotcha Governance: Adopt a monitoring calendar that describes which goals will be monitored during which months. The ideal monitoring calendar will span the full term of the goals – if they are five year goals, the calendar should cover five years.

Don’t Offer Advice: Monitoring is never an opportunity for board members to provide advice to the superintendent regarding what should/shouldn’t be done about student outcomes. It’s also not about liking/not liking the superintendent’s strategies.

Effective Superintendent Participation

How superintendents show up in the monitoring conversation has a huge impact on the conversation’s effectiveness. A few guidelines include:

Don’t Hide the Data: The student performance data being presented during the monitoring conversation should be easy for most parents to understand. As such, monitoring reports should be only 1-5 pages at most, and should be written at no more than an 8th grade reading level.

Don’t Sugar Coat the Data: The data is the data. Whatever it says is what it says – good, bad, or ugly. Never suggest that the data is saying anything other than what you believe it to be saying. If the school system is off track, say that; don’t talk around that. Sugarcoating loses trust.

Align Monitoring with Managerial Action: If the only time each month that the superintendent and cabinet look at the data in the monitoring report is to prepare for school board meetings, then you’re probably either looking at the wrong data, or doing a poor job of managing the school system.

Be Prepared: Many superintendents rehearse for monitoring conversations by having their teams throw every conceivable question at them before the school board meeting. This is a wise practice not only because it helps with the monitoring conversation but because it can help surface managerial issues and solutions that might not otherwise come up.

Don’t Be Defensive: If the student performance data is disappointing, then it’s natural that school board members would be disappointed. Unfortunately, not all of them will manage their disappointment in a mature, adult, and effective manner. Even if this happens, don’t get defensive.

DURING GOAL MONITORING

Monitoring is about understanding the extent to which reality matches the Board’s adopted goals / interim goals. Monitoring is never about offering advice or recommendations; most of monitoring is about understanding where we are and how we got here. The Board’s curiosity is focused on what’s true for students, not on what adults are/aren’t doing. Here are observations to look for / questions to ask that support effective progress monitoring. Notice that none of these questions offer advice concerning which inputs/outputs the Superintendent should select; these are monitoring questions, not managing questions.

AFTER GOAL MONITORING

Accept or Not Accept the Monitoring Report?

Once the school board has completed the monitoring conversation, it must choose whether to accept or not accept the report based on three questions: 1) does reality match the vision, 2) is there growth toward the vision, and 3) is there a strategy and plan sufficient to cause growth toward the vision?

If the answer to all three is yes, then the board can accept the monitoring report confident that data is accurate & the superintendent is performing.

If the answer to only one or two of these questions is yes, the board may opt to table the matter (see Keep the Conversation Going above).

If the answer to all three is no, the board may opt to reject the report and reflect on how to respond to the superintendent’s non-performance.

The Change Goals or Not?

Once the school board has completed the monitoring conversation, it’s also appropriate – though not required – to ask whether or not the goal is still an appropriate representation of the community’s vision for what students should know and be able to do. This inquiry should not be taken lightly; goal monitoring is most effective when the goals only change after their term has expired or they are accomplished. Frequently changing goals makes it almost impossible to adequately assess superintendent performance and to avoid wasting school system resources. If the school board believes that the goal is no longer appropriate, it should create a plan to start the board-led community listening process over again and then begin the community listening process from scratch. If the school board is unwilling to put in the work to ensure that a full community listening process informs goals selection, it shouldn’t be trying to change goals.Evaluating the Quality of Goal Monitoring

While the board is in the process of conducting the monitoring conversation:

Use the “Evaluation Rubric” to evaluate every individual question on its SMARTness: Strategy, Measure, Ask-oriented, Results, Time-bound.

Use the “Tally Sheet” below to track whether each individual question is focused or not (“Yes” or “No”). This will provide data that describes the percentage of all of the questions that are focused (“% Focused”) on each of the SMART characteristics.

Average the individual ratings for the SMART characteristics together to get the overall rating of monitoring quality. Some behaviors – ineffective monitoring practices, not being prepared in advance, or not participating – will give automatic zeroes.

Total Monitoring Scores of 90 and above indicate highly effective monitoring, 80-89 indicate effective, 70-79 indicate approaching effective, and 69 or less indicate ineffectiveness. (see Effective Goal Monitoring spreadsheet; it automatically performs these steps)

Effective school boards consider superintendent evaluation to be identical to school system evaluation. For this reason, 100% of superintendent evaluation is based on progress relative to the Goals and Guardrails. The Board’s annual evaluation of the superintendent then becomes a summary of results reported throughout the year through progress monitoring. The annual evaluation allows the board to summarize its judgment of the Superintendent’s performance based on the objective evidence given through the monitoring report data provided throughout the previous year. The Board has the opportunity to discuss performance highs and lows and make a measured determination as to whether the current Superintendent remains adequate. The Board will also be able to deal with any adjustments to contract and compensation accordingly at this time.

Superintendent Evaluation Process

Phase 0: Throughout the Year

Each month, board conducts monitoring of Goals and Guardrails (formative assessment)

Phase 1: Before Supt Eval

3rd party conducts evaluation training for the board (optional unless there will be a subjective element to the evaluation, then should be required for any board member who has not completed the training within the previous 24 months)

3rd party conducts board 360 eval (optional at board discretion)

3rd party conducts supt 360 eval (optional at supt discretion)

Board conducts self eval

Supt conducts self eval

Phase 2: During Supt Eval

Supt shares and discusses self eval with board

Board discusses 1) board self eval, 2) supt self eval (including data), 3) year’s worth of Goals monitoring reports, and 4) year’s worth of Guardrails monitoring reports

Board chair drafts summary letter that addresses glows, grows, contract, and compensation

Supt offers comments on draft letter

Board discusses and adopts final evaluation letter for the supt

Phase 3: After Supt Eval

Board reviews goal metrics to clarify Goals for following year

Board adopts supt annual eval instrument, weights, and process for following year

Superintendent Evaluation Instrument

A Goal has “Met Annual Target” if either the end of School Year (SY) Actual is greater than or equal to the SY Target OR if at least two of the three Interim Goals have “Met Annual Target” or “Met 5yr Target”. A Guardrail has “Met Annual Target” if at least two of the three Interim Guardrails have “Met Annual Target” or “Met 5yr Target”.

Summative Evaluation Considerations

The board needs to determine what the summative results of the above data means – if it’s weighted or not and what the threshold for Satisfactory will be.

This framework would not be possible without significant encouragement and feedback from the Effective School Boards Framework-aligned coaches and leaders who are guiding this work nationwide and who have been a constant source of inspiration and support on this journey:

Rick Alvarado, Patricia Arvanitis, Kirsten Baesler, Jessica Barr, Carol Beckerle, Kara Belew, Richard Blissett, Nancy Brune, Mike Casserly, Jeff Cottrill, Airick Journey Crabill, Kelli Crain, Monica Curls, Sue Deigaard, Dee Ann Drummond, Laurie Elliott, Cindy Elsbernd, Myrla Feria, Leslie Finger, Veronica Frenkel, Leslie Grant, Chandra Hampson, Ray Hart, Alisha Hilde, Drew Howard, Mónica Jaloma, Rodney Jordan, Vladimir Kogan, Claire Landau, Larry Lee, Delic Loyde, Morris Lyon, Ben Mackey, Brad Marianno, Kim Martorano, Linda McAnelly, Robby McGowen, Marcia McMahon, Mike Morath, Sarah Nick, Debb Oliver, Ashley Paz, Jacinto Ramos, Amanda Sargent, Michelle Simmons, Charlene Simpson, Robyne Stevenson, Laura Strube, Janice Thomas, Ed Vara, Travis Whisenant, and Tony Williams.

Improving student outcomes is airick journey crabill’s relentless focus. His passion to improve student outcomes is rooted in his past: raised in and out of foster care, he attended eleven schools before graduating. He attended urban, suburban and rural schools; private, public, and parochial schools; lived with white families and families of color; lived in racist communities and inclusive communities; experienced loving homes and homelessness. Guided by the idea that student outcomes don’t change until adult behaviors change and drawing on his intimate familiarity with the triumphs and terrors of America’s safety nets for children, he has devoted much of his adult life to advocating for the well-being of the United State’s most vulnerable youth. AJ previously served as the Conservator at DeSoto (TX) Independent School District. During his guidance, DeSoto made double digit literacy gains and improved from having F ratings in areas of academics, finance, and governance to the district earning B ratings. He serves as Education Faculty at the Leadership Institute of Nevada where he trains cohorts of aspiring principals and superintendents to be intensely focused on improving student outcomes by changing their adult behavior; Collaborator with the Effective School Boards Initiative, a nationwide school board research consortium; and Director of Governance at the Council of the Great City Schools in Washington, DC where he leads school board supports for the nation’s largest urban school systems. He served as Deputy Commissioner at the Texas Education Agency and he spearheaded reforms as board chair of Kansas City (MO) Public Schools that doubled the percentage of students who are literate and numerate and, eventually, led KCPS to full accreditation for the first time in decades. Crabill received the Education Commission of the State’s James Bryant Conant Award, which recognizes extraordinary individual contributions to education, was a finalist for CGCS’ Green-Garner Award, recipient of the KC NAACP’s Lucile H. Bluford Special Achievement Award, and recipient of KCPS Education Foundation’s Loyalty to Scholars Award. He is the author of, “Great On Their Behalf: Why School Boards Fail, How Yours Can Be Effective”, a book focused on improving student outcomes by help school system leaders better represent the vision and values of their communities. A former tech startup entrepreneur and avid volunteer, when AJ is not providing education leadership and coaching across the nation, he still enjoys coding, training high schoolers in student-led restorative practices, experimenting with flavorful and very spicy recipes in his kitchen, serving as a CASA volunteer, and zooming around on his electric unicycle. Inspired by his parents who fostered more than 80 children, Crabill has mentored dozens of young people, has helped raise five young people, and will not be surprised when God sends another young person to his open door.