By LuAnn Bird
Note from Tony Palmeri: LuAnn Bird served 6 years on the Oshkosh Area School District Board of Education (1995-2001), including her last 2 years as Board President. She graduated from Alverno College in December of 2001 with a degree in Community Leadership and Development. She had the honor of being selected as student speaker, and her speech can be found here. Last fall LuAnn took an in-depth look at Wisconsin's school boards as part of a course she was taking at Alverno. Her study, called "Do Wisconsin's School Boards Work?," was recently published in the Wisconsin School Board News. The version of the study appearing below was adapted to newly elected school board members. It appears on the Commentary web site with LuAnn's permission. LuAnn Bird can be emailed at labird@new.rr.com.
April 2002
Congratulations on being elected to serve as a member of your local school board. By dedicating your time to education, you are making a commitment to ensure our children will have the skills they need to be successful in our rapidly changing, global society. After serving for six years on the Oshkosh School Board, I know how challenging yet rewarding your job can be.
When I was elected in 1995, our board was struggling with ineffective governance. We made a conscious decision to get out of the business of micromanaging. I attended the Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB) orientation workshops and read the available materials to learn effective ways to govern. With several other members of our board, I attended the State Education Convention in Milwaukee and participated in pre-convention workshops. We held many additional meetings to create a new set of governance policies. Just like building a house, we set the foundation for how we would govern. Our efforts met with success, and we made many positive changes.
However, with each election came a new board, making it difficult to maintain our governance philosophy. We seemed to perform better when we spent time on planning and reviewing our role as part of our own board professional development. It's easy to get caught up in operations or single issues and lose site of educating children. Unfortunately, items that have little or no impact on student learning sometimes fill the agenda. Over time, I wondered do school boards really work?
Last fall I took an in-depth look at Wisconsin's school boards as part of a course I was taking at Alverno College. My research explored the history and purpose of school boards and identified strengths and potential areas for improvement. I started by asking this question, "Why do we have the current system of school districts with elected school boards?"
History of School Boards
In Wisconsin, the first free, tax-supported graded school opened in Kenosha in 1849; by 1937, there were 7,777 school districts. In an effort to improve and equalize education, the state Legislature in 1945 established a committee to study and recommend proposals for reorganizing school facilities in the state. Consolidation began, and by 1947 there were 6,391 districts with 4,127 operating one-teacher schools.1Today we have 426 districts governed by elected school boards.
With the exception of Milwaukee, all board members in the state are elected at-large, which is distinctly different from other governing bodies such as city councils or county boards where members are elected by and from an area within the city or county.
According to Steve Hintzman, WASB director of Legal and Policy Services, the at-large election process was supposed to attract board members who had a broader interest in the school district as a whole. It was also expected that school boards might function more like a "corporate" board as opposed to dealing with political disputes between wards. Similar to business, education has a specific mission.
State Statutes on Educational Goals
Wisconsin State Statute 118.01 defines public education as
"a fundamental responsibility of the state. The constitution vests in the state superintendent the supervision of public instruction and directs the legislature to provide for the establishment of district schools. The effective operation is dependent on a common understanding of what public schools should be and do."
Responsibilities are identified as follows: "Parents and guardians … share with the state and school board responsibility for pupils meeting goals." The four educational goals defined in the statute are:
According to Statute 120.13, school boards "may do all things reasonable to promote the cause of education, including establishing, providing, and improving school district programs, functions and activities for the benefit of pupils and including all of the following…" The statute then lists more specific requirements.
The state defines the mission of our schools, but allows boards to choose the method by which they will govern. Being familiar with Oshkosh's approach to governance and having worked as a consultant in several districts, I wondered what models other boards might be using.
Survey Methodology
Carol Tyler, consultant and trainer for the Quality Academy, a consulting wing of the Fox Valley Technical College, also was interested in identifying the needs of school boards, so we agreed to work together on a broader study. In November 2001, we conducted a survey to find out what models of governance school boards were using, how boards were performing, and in which areas they might need help.
All the public school districts in the Fox Valley Technical College area were included in the research. We reached 81 percent (25 out of 31) of the board presidents by using a phone interview, while 52 percent (16 out of 31) of superintendents responded to a written survey.
Results
Regarding models or approaches to governance, most boards, 92 percent, are using (to some degree) strategic planning, which consists of having a mission, a vision, goals, implementation plans, and measures. Almost three-quarters, 73 percent, are using Policy Governance: The board sets the policy, speaks with one voice, sets the direction, monitors the "ends" of the system, and delegates the "means" or operations to the superintendent. A little more than half, 54 percent, are using Continuous Quality Improvement/Total Quality Management (CQI/TQM), a business approach that uses a management model of empowerment (as opposed to managing from the top down), makes decisions using data, changes processes to improve results, and focuses on customer satisfaction. (See figures 1-3)
In the section on board performance, presidents and superintendents rated most categories in the OK-to-good range. Areas rated the highest included effective board meetings, understanding the role of the superintendent, and teamwork. Lowest were district monitoring, board professional development, and board self-evaluation. (See Fig. 4)
Although the order of priority changed for each group of respondents, both identified the same top seven categories listed below as areas in which they need assistance:
With the exception of strategic planning, these categories were identified as areas of weakness in the evaluation of board performance section. (See Fig. 5)
Other key findings include:
All of the board presidents contacted were patient, caring, dedicated leaders, and their length of service was impressive. Demographics showed that 88 percent had served on the board for more than 6 years, and about half, 48 percent, had served as president for four or more years.
Conclusions
Yes, Wisconsin school boards do work, but according to my research findings, there is room for improvement. At the State Education Convention in Milwaukee this year, it was obvious to me that most board members are there to serve students. During his character education program, Peter Yarrow showed a video of children with disabilities participating in sports, while the song, "Don't Laugh at Me" played in the background. At least 1,000 compassionate, dedicated, sincere school board members attended, and I noticed there was hardly a dry eye in the room, including mine. Elected school officials really do care about our students and are working to achieve the mission of public education.
Boards want to spend time on professional development. Evaluating your own performance will help identify the areas of strength on which you should build and areas to improve. A retreat may offer the perfect forum to clarify your governance philosophy and explore ways to make your board even better! Create a framework that provides a solid foundation upon which to govern your district. Attend the WASB conferences and events. Join and participate in the NSBA. As educational leaders, you can make Wisconsin's already high-performing schools the best in the nation. Our children are depending on you!
Reference
Richard A. Rossmiller, Opportunities Unlimited: A Guide for Wisconsin School Boards, 7th ed. (Oshkosh, WI: Castle Pierce Press, 1988).
LuAnn Bird is a former school board president for the
Oshkosh School District. Currently an educational consultant, she can
be reached at
labird@new.rr.com.
Fig. 1: Results for Strategic Planning as an approach/model for governance
Fig. 2: Results for Policy Governance approach/model
Fig. 3: Results for Continuous Quality Improvement/Total Quality Management as an approach/model for governance
Fig. 4: Results from evaluation of board performance
Fig. 5: Results from section on areas in which boards might need assistance
