1. Emergency Succession Planning:
   Making sure that there is a written plan which enables the board, school staff, and families to be clear on which staff would be responsible for key responsibilities and which staff would report to the board in the event that a sudden emergency prevented the CEO from continuing in his or her role. See sample template attached below. 
   
   
2. Long-Term Talent Development Strategy:
   While this can be as specific as agreement on a future successor for the CEO and a timeline for the transition, for most organizations we work with, it is a more general planning process to ensure that the organization has in place policies and practices to build the next generation of leadership.

To ensure schools can consistently provide strong results for students and families, CEOs and boards must ensure that their organization has a written emergency succession plan and a set of policies and approaches that are building the future generations of leadership of the organization, even from the organization’s earliest years. 

The remainder of this document outlines BoardOnTrack's recommended process for creating the emergency succession plan and for ensuring that long-term succession is receiving adequate attention, given the pressing needs of managing and governing a charter school.

Emergency Succession Plan

This plan clarifies who would be responsible for managing which aspects of the school and who would report to the board, in the event that the CEO becomes suddenly unavailable to do his or her job.

Procedure for Plan Development

1. The creation of an emergency succession plan originates with the CEO.
2. The CEO should draft a plan, share this with the CEO Support and Evaluation Committee or Taskforce[1], receive feedback, and revise as necessary.
3. The revised document should be shared with the full board for an official vote to accept the emergency succession plan.

Creating a Draft Emergency Succession Plan

1. CEO Job Description
   Take the CEO job description (after confirming that it truly reflects the CEO’s major responsibilities) and list the categories of the main responsibilities, with notes on the key pieces of each.
   
   
2. Responsibilities
   Assign each category of responsibility to specific staff members. Ideally, responsibility for the entire job would rest with one successor, in an emergency, but often this is not feasible.
   
   If it is not, BoardOnTrack recommends that you divide the responsibilities between no more than two or, if unavoidable, three people.  An example template is below.
   
   
3. Skills or background knowledge
   After you have completed this process of outlining responsibilities and assigning them to one to three staff members, we recommend that you consider carefully what skills or background knowledge these staff members might need to develop in order to fulfill these succession responsibilities successfully. Then create action plans for meeting these learning needs. 
   
   An example of this type of consideration and planning is summarized in the rightmost column on the example table below.
   
   
4. Key Questions
   As you create your emergency succession plan, there are a few key questions that you should be sure to address:

• Are all the responsibilities the CEO currently fulfills clearly delineated in the CEO job description? If not, it is time to revise it to document them.  (The Board and CEO might consider making high-level task lists, calendars, and “where is everything?” lists to capture what the leader does—see Succession Planning Article).
• Do the designated successors have the skills and knowledge they will need? If not, how will they get it?
• Do the designated successors have the necessary relationships with the key constituencies (students, families, staff, donors, authorizers, community leaders, etc.)?  If not, how will they develop them?
• Has the succession plan been made clear to senior staff? (While it can be uncomfortable to discuss emergency succession, key staff must know what they are responsible for if something comes up).
• When will the plan be reviewed each year to make any necessary updates?  (BoardOnTrack recommends you do so at your September or October board meeting each year.)

What, if any, part of the interview process for teachers or other staff is intended to gain insight into their capacity for and interest in future leadership?

The most important role a board can play in developing a long-term succession strategy is to ask smart questions that help the CEO to articulate what the organization is doing to grow future generations of leadership. These questions include:

• When your CEO looks at their staff, how would he or she divide them into three tiers:

1. Those with strong leadership potential that should be invested in.
2. Those who may have leadership potential, but more probing is necessary to clarify the extent of their potential.
3. Those who do not possess significant leadership potential.

• How does your organization assess which staff members are in which groups?
• What is your CEO’s plan for each of these groups?
• How does your school reward/invest in those with high potential?
• What are the leadership opportunities that your school has created to allow teachers to explore their potential and to grow as leaders of adults?  (E.g., grade team or department level chairs, enrichment coordinator, summer academy administrator, Saturday school administrator, etc.)
• How is your CEO feeling about his or her own career progression? What does the CEO imagine doing professionally in three to five years? (It is worth revisiting this question every year as part of the CEO’s annual review.)

 Recommended Action Steps

1. The CEO writes a report outlining his or her thoughts on longer-term succession management. This document should contain answers to the questions above and other relevant information.
   
   
2. The CEO then shares this document with the CEO Support and Evaluation Committee or Taskforce, receives feedback, and revises as necessary.
   
   
3. The revised plan is shared with the full board for an official vote to accept the intent of the succession management plan, and the creation of specific goals and expectations for the CEO that may emerge from this process.