Board Self Evaluation
While I have not ever participated in a Board Self Evaluation, I am going to share the information provided in the CSBA Superintendent Evaluation Workshop for those interested in this practice. The workshop I attended was facilitated by Kirk Berger and Chris Maricle, Senior CBSA Governance Consultants.
Why do it?
First, if you use CSBA policy services it is high likely you have adopted a policy for doing Board Self-Evaluation. It will be Board Policy By-Law 9400. When you read the policy you will see the key phrase: the Board will annually schedule a time and place at which all its members may participate in a formal self-evaluation. While the evaluation is optional, the process of doing a board self process can lead to better team dynamics and an alignment of your work with District priorities/goals.
Internal Focus
The intent of measuring internal functions of the board is to record the range of perceptions as the first step in a self-evaluation process. Each board member would rate a number of statements regarding board unity, board and board culture to inform a productive discussion regarding how the board could increase its effectiveness. Below are sample statements that could be used:
-
Trustees share a common understanding of governance.
-
Trustees agree on the role of the Superintendent, the Board and the relationship between them.
-
Trustees treat each other with respect and actively identify and address conflicts among themselves.
-
This board works to reach consensus on important matters.
-
All trustees support majority decisions.
External Focus
CSBA identifies effective governance practices that board can be used for evaluating themselves. They are: 1.) Setting Direction 2.) Establish Structure 3.) Model Support for the District 4.) Ensure Accountability and 5.) Provide Community Leadership. Within the annual framework of setting goals and success indicators for the Superintendent Evaluation, the board can identify their own goals and metrics to be evaluated. For example, if your Board identified an annual goal for the Superintendent to prepare for a Bond measure in Spring, 2010, the Board could have their own goal to build support among community leaders for passage of the Bond measure.
For more information about the board self evaluation process, you can order a board self-evaluation toolkit from CSBA.
Staying on Message
If you are like most school districts in California, you issued March 15th 2009 layoff intent notices to your certificated staff. Along with that action, we implicitly or explicitly began to deliver a message to our community about the dire fiscal situation facing our schools. In the coming months we will be faced with additional actions that will continue to communicate a message to our community. Given the uncertain economic times, careful consideration should be taken as plan our actions in the coming months.
May 15th Action
By May 15th, each school board needs to decide whether to rescind the March 15th notices or proceed to issue final layoff notices. In addition, your Board maybe deciding on whether to issue layoff intent notices to your classified staff in May. Here are a few questions to consider:
-
Are the actions being taken for May 15th notices consistent with the message delivered in March?
-
What additional communications are needed to clarify our actions for May 15 notices, given the uncertainty regarding the May 19th Special Election results?
-
What communications regarding the Federal Stimulus monies are we prepared to make?
-
Are we taking steps to communicate our message to students, parents, employees, the press and community?
-
What is our longer term message (2009 through 2011) regarding our district’s fiscal situation?
June 30th Action
By June 30th, we need to pass our 2009/10 budget along a multi-year projections through 2012. The outcome of the May 19th Special Election and disbursement of Federal Stimulus monies will make it a challenge for staff to prepare the budget. Once again the questions above need to be considered to insure your message is consistent.
Two Way Dialogue
Finally, as we deliver our message regarding our district’s fiscal situation, I would encourage each school district to solicit feedback from your stakeholders. The coming years will be extremely difficult, so building a two way dialogue between the board and the community will foster trust as we face the upcoming challenges.
Staying Informed
As School Board members we need get constantly get better about staying informed about the public education issues and concerns. However, it is a challenge to find the time to keep with our own local issues. Below are 10 high leverage ways I use to stay inform. What are the most effective methods you use to stay informed?
Local Focus
- Local Newspapers – Following the news coverage of your Board meeting and Letters to the Editor is a good place to start to measure the pulse of our community.
- Local Blogs – An emerging trend is citizens who start a blog to cover local issues including local schools. For example in Alameda, we have five blogs that will post stories about the Alameda school district. Alameda even has a site (Alamedans.com ) where multiple blogs are tracked.
- Google Groups/Yahoo Groups – At school site level, numerous schools are using Yahoo Groups and Google groups as a form of communicate with parents. In addition, groups are started around areas of interest including special education, arts in the schools and issues like kindergarten enrollment practices. By posting comments on these sites, you take community engagement to a new level.
- PTA Council – By having someone from the Board attending the monthly PTA council, we can hear first hand some of issues facing our schools on a day to day basis.
- DELAC/Cultural Groups – Each community faces the challenges of language and its impact on parental involvement. Your District English Language Advisory Committee meetings are a good place to connect with this community.
State & Federal Focus
- FCMAT – FCMAT has a daily news aggregator about school district related news stories around the state.
- Rough Tumble – Rough & Tumble is a news aggregation service that tracks major news stories about politics, education, health care, energy and the economy around the state.
- Public Education Network – Public Education Network is a weekly newsletter that tracks public education stories for the country. You can subscribe to a weekly news blast via Email.
- Education Week – Education Week is news site devoted exclusively to public education. Online access to articles cost approximately $70 a year.
- Education Blogs – Teachers, administrators and parents maintain blogs about the public education experience. So if you have a particular area of interest within education like nutrition, the arts or parental involvement you can find individuals who are blogging about it. You can start your search here: Alltop Education .
CA State Budget Crisis – Confronting Reality
For the past six years, the normal cycle has been like this. The Governor releases a January budget proposing significant reductions to public education funding. Education groups like PTA, CTA and CSBA advocate for children and somehow the reductions go away. However, this time was different. On February 20, 2009 the signing of the 17 month State budget signaled a new reality for California school boards.
Confronting Reality
The approved State budget dramatically reduces the amount of ongoing revenue for a school district. For example for Alameda Unified, the beginning 2008/09 funding level of per student funding on July 1, 2009 was $5,801. On February 20 the funding level was lowered to $5,627. The news gets worse since the February budget continues into 2010. The 2009/10 funding level drops to $5,575 per student. For Alameda Unified with 10,000 students, the $226 decline in per student funding represents $2,000,000 of ongoing annual revenue lost. Meanwhile, ongoing expenses for personnel, technology and operations (energy, insurance, etc.) are increasing. Therefore, the gap between ongoing revenues and ongoing expenses is even larger and signals a need for a new level of budget review and preparation.
Clarifying Expectations
The three options for school districts (1. increase revenues 2. reduce expenses or 3. a combination of 1 and 2) needs to be decided when the school board approves their 2009/10 budget by June 30, 2009. The biggest challenge facing us is aligning the fiscal realities with community expectations regarding the services we have been providing. Programs like class size reduction are extremely popular with parents yet represent an area where significant cost reductions can occur if eliminated.
As I mentioned in this prior post on Budget Reductions and Community Engagement, starting an ongoing dialogue is crucial as it appears school districts finances will be facing significant reductions for a number of years.