Defining the Board’s Role Governance/Management Vignettes
The best way for the board and CEO to build a joint understanding of the distinctions between governance and management is to talk through plausible scenarios. Try these mini case studies below, or use them as a jumping off point to create your own.
For each of these scenarios, define the board’s role and the CEO’s role:
- It is the fall of your second year of school. The state test scores come out and your students are doing exceptionally well in English Language Arts (ELA), but their math scores are terrible.
- It is June, and the CEO is giving the board a wrap-up of the school year. The board is shocked to hear that 60% of the teachers are not going to return next year.
- The board hears anecdotal evidence that the school is doing a wonderful job with the lowest performers but that the highest achieving kids in the school are not being challenged, and many of them have left or are planning to leave the school.
- During the winter of the school’s first year, the senior management team of the school has crafted a policy to determine which students will need to repeat a grade and which students will be promoted to the next grade.
- The board and the CEO agreed to pay bonuses to teachers, and there is a lump sum in the budget from which to draw from.
- A teacher has a conflict with the CEO. She comes to a board meeting and talks about the conflict, catching everyone unaware.
- The board chair and the CEO have a serious disagreement about a major policy issue.
- The board receives an anonymous letter complaining about the CEO.
- A reporter, investigating rumors about teacher unrest at the school, calls a board member at home.
- The board receives an anonymous letter complaining that the principal (not the CEO; the instructional lead who reports to the CEO) has been seen on a date with one of her teachers.
- A friend of a board member is invited to a board meeting to present information on a computer software program that he wants the school to buy.
- An incident involving school violence occurs at the school. Who gets called and in what order?
- The CEO decides to invite a number of important leaders, and the accompanying media, to visit the school, but neglects to tell the board.
- The parent association decides that parents should be involved in decisions about the school’s curriculum; the association chairperson catches a board member in the shopping mall and complains. The next week, a group of parents comes to a board meeting to raise this issue.
- The CEO decides not to renew a teacher’s contract, but the board chair tells her she must invite the teacher back because she is a powerful force in the community. How do they resolve that issue? Who has veto power?
- The board thinks that the current school schedule does not allow enough time for physical education.
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