Boldly Committed to Truth Telling in the False Face of Fakery
Should our school board abolish its committee system?
I am encouraged by the discussions the Beaufort County Board of Education is having about how it can function more effectively, and hopefully more efficiently. The focus of the discussion is on whether to keep the committee system or use some other method of meeting. I'll share my experience on this issue for whatever it may be worth.
First, for those who do not know, let me say that in the fifteen years I worked as Director of the Rural Education Institute at ECU we worked with dozens of school boards and county commissions in Eastern North Carolina. We conducted leadership academies that often included sessions for the boards, as well as the management team. We even developed a "board assessment" system as a part of an audit process that was used by some boards to examine their perceived performance on a standardized set of criteria the research showed were indicators of excellence in board leadership.
As an aside I would share that what both our experience and research showed was that, while there were several, the single most important indicator of board excellence was "the ability to distinguish the significant few from the trivial many." We taught the 80/20 Rule--80% of the decisions will not matter six weeks from now, but 20% will make a real difference. And we would hope our school board would consider that issue in how it constructs agendas. All one need do to see the need for a discussion of this is to look at the personnel list they act on each month. But that's an issue for another day.
One of the other things we learned in working with dozens of boards was that the quality of decision-making by the board itself was directly and inextricably related to the quality of the reasoning each individual board member brought to the table. And the quality of reasoning was not related to the IQ of individual board members but rather how prepared they were when they came to decision-time. Over and over again we saw what improved the quality of decision-making by individual board members were two things: Knowledge of the information related to the decision and the degree of reflection put into decisions. On the contrary, the worst decisions made by individual board members and by boards themselves came when the decisions were rushed--often spontaneous--and without sufficient information and time for each member to process that information.
Put another way, the best decisions--as perceived by the boards themselves--came when individual board members were better prepared. That's common sense. Being prepared requires two things: Access to essential information and time to consider the information. Most of us know we make our best decisions when we have time to think about them.
Some board members need/want more time than others. But all members usually benefit from "sleeping on it," or to put it another way, time to think and reflect before making a decision.
That is the strongest argument for the two-a-month meeting schedule. It allows for an "information" meeting to dispense and discuss essential data and information, and it allows time for individual board members to do follow-up research if need be before having to cast their vote. The "action" meeting usually requires less discussion (time) and the decisions are typically better simply because of the incubation period prior to the actual decision.
As for the committee system I would suggest it is seriously flawed for many reasons but fatally flawed for one simple, overriding reason: It means all board members do not have equal access to all of the information other board members have. That is not good. Our research showed that the "real decisions" were made in committee and most often were simply ratified at the full board meeting. Thus, on every decision half the board is at a disadvantage. (What my experience shows is that the committee system was usually the result of a superintendent or board chair wanting to control decision-making rather than a desire to have each board member fully participate in the deliberations.) The committee system almost always degenerates into a "don't rock the boat" syndrome operating. That is, non-committee members were expected to go along with the committees' decisions, and unscrupulous chairs were often seen "stacking" the committees for some nefarious purpose and the chairs usually always were members of all committees which in and of itself gave them more power.
You might be interested in another observation, ironically uncovered in one of our first Leadership Audits, in none other than Beaufort County, way back in the day when the school board had five members. Five-member boards are the most efficient, and least effective. They had the shortest meetings and fewest split votes--not because of what happened during the meeting but rather what happened before the meeting. When our auditor interviewed the school board chair (who is now deceased--so we're not talking about anyone around today) he explained the decision-making process. "I call John a couple of days before the meeting. We talk about what we're going to do and then we eat breakfast with Sam the day before the meeting. Sam usually goes along with what John and I want to do so we have the three votes. When we get to the meeting the other two just go along. I can't remember them ever not doing so." He and John did not like our Audit Report.
I understand the concern some of our board members have about long and especially late-night meetings. But I would respectfully suggest that they consider other ways the meetings could be made to be more efficient. There are many ways. And with this board they might want to try to find a way to abbreviate the "recognitions" part of the meeting. Would it not be better to hold the Character Awards at the students' school so other students could see them? Would it not be better to have a monthly or quarterly janitorial meeting and give out the Clean School Award in front of all of the custodial staff. From experience I can tell you many custodians would relish a monthly "banquet." That's money well spent.
But if the Beaufort County board really analyzed the time consumption of their meetings they would find that the closed sessions probably would be the best place to seek greater efficiency. I would suggest, for example, that the board delegate personnel decisions for non-certified personnel to the management team, except on appeal, and deal only with certified recommendations.
And in this technological age I would seriously recommend that Dog and Pony Shows, particularly those from presenters such as auditors, architects, consultants, salesmen and staff be done via video. One of the most effective things I ever say a board do was to have two staff people who were experts in learning theory analyze several board meetings. It was an astounding eye opener. Simple conclusion: Most board meetings violate sound learning theory much worse than is done in almost any classroom in the system. (And I'm talking adult learning theory, not child developmental theory.) I would suggest that most all staff presentations should be via video and few should ever require a lecture being presented to the board. A video or Powerpoint (with sound) that is well edited is a great timesaver and if done well, a much more effective dispensing of information.
Finally, one of the things we learned in our Leadership Academies was that good board decision-making does not just happen. Groups need to learn good decision-making and that means they must usually be taught. And the best teaching we learned came from a board assessing how it functioned. There are many ways to do this, and what Mrs. Winstead has done is one of them. We commend her for causing our board to take a look at how it functions. I am absolutely confident that whatever decision they make about how they're going to operate will result in a more effective board.
And that is leadership.
Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.
Go Back
First, for those who do not know, let me say that in the fifteen years I worked as Director of the Rural Education Institute at ECU we worked with dozens of school boards and county commissions in Eastern North Carolina. We conducted leadership academies that often included sessions for the boards, as well as the management team. We even developed a "board assessment" system as a part of an audit process that was used by some boards to examine their perceived performance on a standardized set of criteria the research showed were indicators of excellence in board leadership.
As an aside I would share that what both our experience and research showed was that, while there were several, the single most important indicator of board excellence was "the ability to distinguish the significant few from the trivial many." We taught the 80/20 Rule--80% of the decisions will not matter six weeks from now, but 20% will make a real difference. And we would hope our school board would consider that issue in how it constructs agendas. All one need do to see the need for a discussion of this is to look at the personnel list they act on each month. But that's an issue for another day.
One of the other things we learned in working with dozens of boards was that the quality of decision-making by the board itself was directly and inextricably related to the quality of the reasoning each individual board member brought to the table. And the quality of reasoning was not related to the IQ of individual board members but rather how prepared they were when they came to decision-time. Over and over again we saw what improved the quality of decision-making by individual board members were two things: Knowledge of the information related to the decision and the degree of reflection put into decisions. On the contrary, the worst decisions made by individual board members and by boards themselves came when the decisions were rushed--often spontaneous--and without sufficient information and time for each member to process that information.
Put another way, the best decisions--as perceived by the boards themselves--came when individual board members were better prepared. That's common sense. Being prepared requires two things: Access to essential information and time to consider the information. Most of us know we make our best decisions when we have time to think about them.
Some board members need/want more time than others. But all members usually benefit from "sleeping on it," or to put it another way, time to think and reflect before making a decision.
That is the strongest argument for the two-a-month meeting schedule. It allows for an "information" meeting to dispense and discuss essential data and information, and it allows time for individual board members to do follow-up research if need be before having to cast their vote. The "action" meeting usually requires less discussion (time) and the decisions are typically better simply because of the incubation period prior to the actual decision.
As for the committee system I would suggest it is seriously flawed for many reasons but fatally flawed for one simple, overriding reason: It means all board members do not have equal access to all of the information other board members have. That is not good. Our research showed that the "real decisions" were made in committee and most often were simply ratified at the full board meeting. Thus, on every decision half the board is at a disadvantage. (What my experience shows is that the committee system was usually the result of a superintendent or board chair wanting to control decision-making rather than a desire to have each board member fully participate in the deliberations.) The committee system almost always degenerates into a "don't rock the boat" syndrome operating. That is, non-committee members were expected to go along with the committees' decisions, and unscrupulous chairs were often seen "stacking" the committees for some nefarious purpose and the chairs usually always were members of all committees which in and of itself gave them more power.
You might be interested in another observation, ironically uncovered in one of our first Leadership Audits, in none other than Beaufort County, way back in the day when the school board had five members. Five-member boards are the most efficient, and least effective. They had the shortest meetings and fewest split votes--not because of what happened during the meeting but rather what happened before the meeting. When our auditor interviewed the school board chair (who is now deceased--so we're not talking about anyone around today) he explained the decision-making process. "I call John a couple of days before the meeting. We talk about what we're going to do and then we eat breakfast with Sam the day before the meeting. Sam usually goes along with what John and I want to do so we have the three votes. When we get to the meeting the other two just go along. I can't remember them ever not doing so." He and John did not like our Audit Report.
I understand the concern some of our board members have about long and especially late-night meetings. But I would respectfully suggest that they consider other ways the meetings could be made to be more efficient. There are many ways. And with this board they might want to try to find a way to abbreviate the "recognitions" part of the meeting. Would it not be better to hold the Character Awards at the students' school so other students could see them? Would it not be better to have a monthly or quarterly janitorial meeting and give out the Clean School Award in front of all of the custodial staff. From experience I can tell you many custodians would relish a monthly "banquet." That's money well spent.
But if the Beaufort County board really analyzed the time consumption of their meetings they would find that the closed sessions probably would be the best place to seek greater efficiency. I would suggest, for example, that the board delegate personnel decisions for non-certified personnel to the management team, except on appeal, and deal only with certified recommendations.
And in this technological age I would seriously recommend that Dog and Pony Shows, particularly those from presenters such as auditors, architects, consultants, salesmen and staff be done via video. One of the most effective things I ever say a board do was to have two staff people who were experts in learning theory analyze several board meetings. It was an astounding eye opener. Simple conclusion: Most board meetings violate sound learning theory much worse than is done in almost any classroom in the system. (And I'm talking adult learning theory, not child developmental theory.) I would suggest that most all staff presentations should be via video and few should ever require a lecture being presented to the board. A video or Powerpoint (with sound) that is well edited is a great timesaver and if done well, a much more effective dispensing of information.
Finally, one of the things we learned in our Leadership Academies was that good board decision-making does not just happen. Groups need to learn good decision-making and that means they must usually be taught. And the best teaching we learned came from a board assessing how it functioned. There are many ways to do this, and what Mrs. Winstead has done is one of them. We commend her for causing our board to take a look at how it functions. I am absolutely confident that whatever decision they make about how they're going to operate will result in a more effective board.
And that is leadership.
Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.
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