Board Assessment: The Starting Point for Setting Goals
Most charter school boards think they are pretty good, but there is no standard for comparison. For instance, when asked about their effectiveness, board members and CEOs often say, “We show up. We have meetings. We get work done. But I guess things could be better.”
Using the BoardOnTrack Capability Maturity Model, boards now have a defined standard and instead of guessing, boards can measure improvement, and the path towards excellence is laid out. Furthermore, with measurement and a plan, we can identify areas for improvement and begin to set goals.
The key to understanding your board’s strengths and areas to improve are two-fold:
- Complete an assessment: First the full board and the organization’s leader should complete a comprehensive annual assessment/self-evaluation. BoardOnTrack membership has a built in annual assessment process. There are 11 quick online assessments that take a few minutes each to complete. These range from effectiveness of board meetings to the board’s role in financial and academic oversight, to the board’s partnership with its CEO. The BoardOnTrack system tallies the results for you and presents a clear picture of the board’s strengths and areas to improve and the results are benchmarked against our national data set. Once complete you can schedule a call with your governance coach to get help in further interpreting the data and creating a board improvement action plan.
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Know where you are in your evolution: Building a great sustainable board should be an ongoing process. If you have mastered Level 1 work, pat yourselves on the back, and take a look at what Level 2 work involves. Set some concrete goals for the year and take your governance to the next level.
- Path to Excellence.pdf500 KB
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