Tag: board-superintendent relations
Your Board President: a Primo Stakeholder You Neglect at Your Peril
The special board work session had been scheduled to consider a key recommendation coming out of the daylong board-superintendent-cabinet governance retreat three weeks earlier: replacing the board’s dysfunctional silo committees (e.g., curriculum and instruction) with committees aligned with the board’s …
The Right Mindset is a Must For Building a Solid Partnership With Your Board
A staple of my one-on-one governance coaching sessions with superintendents in recent years has been the critical role that what I call “Mindset” plays in building and maintaining a close, positive, productive and enduring board-superintendent partnership. What am I talking …
CEO-Centric Leadership Targets Are Key to a Solid Board-Superintendent Partnership
Around fifteen years ago I was retained to facilitate a half-day work session involving a school board and its superintendent. In our initial call to discuss the work session objectives, the board president and superintendent agreed that there was one …
Testing a Unique Approach to Board Standing Committees: the Rockford Public Schools Story
As Board president Ken Scrivano, vice president Tim Rollins, and superintendent Ehren Jarrett explain in the video interview we recorded last week, one of the key outcomes of the Rockford (Illinois) Public Schools’ High-Impact Governing Initiative was to put an …
Don’t Unwittingly Turn Your Board Members Into Victims of Poorly Designed Structure and Process
A superintendent called me recently, asking if I’d be interested in presenting a governance training workshop for her school board. She explained that several board members were coming dangerously close to “micro-managing,” and she wanted them to understand the boundaries …
Board Spear Carriers: Protecting the Superintendent’s Line of Credit
Last week’s post at this blog features my video interview with Dave Schuler, Lead Teacher of AASA’s Aspiring Superintendents Academy and former AASA Chair, who discusses the mission, goals, and accomplishments of the Academy. Dave and I are in complete …
David Schuler on Preparing Aspiring Superintendents for the Top Spot
In addition to serving as superintendent of Illinois High School District 214, Dave Schuler dedicates countless hours to making this true tale of woe that’s recounted in my book Building a High-Impact Board-Superintendent Partnership the exception to the rule. A …
The Lynchpins of a High-Performing Board Committee Structure
While preparing for a four-hour Zoom work session later this week with the superintendent and cabinet of a large Midwestern school district, focusing on preparation for the launch of a new board committee structure, I reflected on a seminal learning …
The Retreat as a Board Capacity Building Vehicle
Experience has taught me that a retreat involving your school board and senior administrators can be a powerful tool for building your board’s governing capacity and strengthening the board-superintendent partnership. But – and it’s a really big caveat – you’ve …
Making Superintendent Evaluation a Relationship Adhesive
As always, I learned as much as I taught from the superintendents participating in the preconference workshop I presented on February 12 at AASA’s National Conference on Education in San Diego – “Cementing the Board-Superintendent Governing Partnership.” The diverse, high-level …
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