Bake Your Board Cake First, Then Worry About the Icing
A sorely disappointed superintendent and I were talking a couple of months ago. She, her school board, and her senior administrators had gone through an intensive weekend retreat six weeks earlier. She explained that it’d been put together to address …
Capitalizing on Spear Carriers to Preserve Your CEO Line of Credit
The school board’s Planning & Development Committee held four intensive work sessions over the course of six months in coming up with a list of schools to be closed because of falling enrollment, working closely with the superintendent and her …
Cleveland Heights-University Heights Superintendent Talisa Dixon on Dealing with Dramatic Board Turnover
“What can I do at this point?” The beleaguered superintendent in the workshop I was presenting last year on building solid board-superintendent partnerships had just shared a horror story with his colleagues in the room – one that I’d heard …
The Miami Lighthouse Partners With the Miami Dade County Schools in the Pre-K Arena
Virginia Jacko and I tell her incredible true story in our book The Blind Visionary (www.GovernanceEdge.com): losing her eyesight while serving as a senior financial executive at Purdue University; starting all over as a vocational rehabilitation student at …
“Policy Governance:” Another Insidious Foe of a Solid Board-Superintendent Partnership
I found presenting my “Building a Rock-Solid Board-Superintendent Partnership” workshop at NSBA’s annual conference in San Antonio on April 6 tremendously energizing. Standing for three hours can be wearing, of course, but the constant stream of thoughtful and pertinent questions …
King Richard III: A Case for Aggressive Image Building
And therefore since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days. Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous….
Ah, King Richard III: how …
Harnessing the Power of Ownership: Overwhelming Approval of Highline Schools Capital Facilities Bond
I learned about the incredible power of Ownership as a force for change early in my career as a governance consultant. The school board president and superintendent of a medium sized suburban district agreed to create a “Governance Improvement Task …
Naked in the Public Eye: Talking With Superintendent/Author Oliver Robinson
If you’d like to know how Superintendent Oliver Robinson came up with the intriguing title “Naked in the Public Eye” for his new book, listen to the podcast Oliver and I recorded last week for this blog.
Naked in the …
Involving Students in District Governance at Leyden High School District 212
Self-appointing nonprofit boards that fill their own seats (for example, chambers of commerce, economic development corporations, private colleges, and social service providers) have over my quarter-century in the nonprofit/public leadership arena by design become steadily more diverse and representative. The …
It’s Never Been Easier To Publish Your Own Book, So Go For It!
“Have you thought about publishing your own books?” No I hadn’t, and, to be honest, the question took me aback when I heard it a decade ago. I was chatting with a long-time colleague, Tom Berger, about the new book …
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