Boards Archives - Page 2 of 2 - AGI • Aspen Group International, LLC

August 31, 2014

Governing More and Managing Less: Imagine That!

Over the years we have worked with hundreds of boards to help them define and clarify board roles. We typically begin with a question asking the board to identify its number one responsibility. Nine times out of 10, boards tell us that policy development is their primary job.

Now, be honest: does your board govern by policy? Sure, you approve a new policy or amend an old one now and then, but do you truly govern your district by making policy-level decisions, or do you spend most of your time dealing with operational issues? Test your answer: mentally reconstruct your last board meeting agenda. How many policy actions did you take?

August 31, 2014

Clarifying Board and Superintendent Roles

Sometimes real life defies explanation. Some realities vary so greatly from logic that we see, but we can’t believe. We may even accept, but we can’t understand.

Such is the case with school board-superintendent relationships. How can one explain how such seemingly complementary roles can clash so greatly in practice? How can one employing entity so proudly announce to the world its “nearly perfect” choice for superintendent one year, only to see the wheels come completely off within a matter of months? What is it about this relationship that makes it so seemingly impossible for the people involved to reach common understanding about whose role it is to do what? And why is it that reasonable role definitions are so perpetually elusive?

August 31, 2014

Imagine This: A Self-Disciplined Board That Adds Value

Between us, we have had more than 40 years’ experience in association management. That means that we have seen a fair number of boards of directors come and go.

But our experience with boards goes deeper than that, much deeper. Our membership during those 40 years was comprised of boards, in our case publicly elected school boards. Some would say that particular kind of board carries its own special brand of challenge, and we would not debate that. But the main point to be understood is that not only have we worked with and for our own boards of directors, but we also served boards as members, trying to help make them as effective as possible. In terms of board behavior, there isn’t much we haven’t seen first-hand.