Board Governance

Boards that do not have an education professional as part of their team may lack inside knowledge of school operations that only comes from experience. In order to help shepherd your school most effectively, you may wish to consider contracting a professional educator to advise and guide the Board. I offer hourly rates, or an annual retained service providing input as required to board and committee discussions. This is often helpful as the Board faces financial issues, school identity crises, building plans, capital campaigns or significant personnel turnover. It can be particularly critical with leadership changes, such as when a long-standing head is facing retirement or a new head has just been appointed.

Trustees take on the role with great intentions and the desire to help the school.  However, the role of trustee is often difficult to navigate, particularly that of the Board Chair. What seems like a simple job is often complicated by a lack of professional knowledge about school operations and governance, competing priorities, personal interests, community gossip, the desire to help parents solve seemingly simple requests, and the drive to improve the school. These all can make the life of a trustee challenging. 

I offer individual trustee and board chair mentoring, whole board training, crisis resolution and mediation.

The Head's contract is up for renewal. How do you negotiate a package that is reasonable but rewarding, ensuring that the Head feels valued and wants to remain engaged?

I offer guidance about what the package should contain, how similar schools reward their Head, and what the current market demands.

When the time comes, recruiting a new Head of School is probably the most critical undertaking of a school board. It seems like an easy process, but it is not! 

There are many excellent executive and head search firms to choose from. Once you have chosen one, they will work with you to provide a pool of candidates and extensive dossiers on each. 

Then the challenge starts. Most school boards don't have the expertise to really understand and evaluate the experience of the candidates, the types of schools they've worked in and their true leadership experience. Most search firms value the qualities of all their selected applicants and are often hesitant to advise deeply about the finalists. They also tend to be cautious and present "safe" candidates, sometimes overlooking a candidate that might be a good fit for the school, despite being less experienced than others.

My role is to provide expert, neutral advice on the search process: who should be involved, how to choose your finalists, analyze their track records, what colleagues may think of them, the types of schools they've worked in and how that matches your needs. Perhaps most importantly, my insight into how they answer interview questions, and  interact with your community constituents will provide an extremely helpful and unique perspective.