School Board Job Description Is a Challenging One Indeed

On Nov. 8, voters throughout California will be electing thousands of school board members to lead their communities’ most important enterprise--their neighborhood school districts.

As multimillion-dollar corporations, school districts are often the largest employer in a community, with the largest transportation and food service operations, and the greatest number of facilities to maintain. These corporations are headed by boards of directors--local school board members.

In California there are over 5,000 school board members governing more than 1,000 local school districts in which 5.3 million children are educated. This is the largest and most diverse public school system in the nation--and 40% of California’s state budget goes to support it.

It’s vitally important for voters to pay close attention to the citizens they select to oversee their schools--the lay governing board members to whom they entrust their children and their tax dollars. In fact, voters hold their schools accountable through the board members they elect. But first they have a responsibility to elect the best possible people to serve on their local governing boards.

What does a board member do?

There are certain core decision-making functions so fundamental to a school system’s accountability to the public that, in our system of democracy, they can be performed only by an elected governing body. Therefore, locally elected board members are responsible for:

* Establishing a long-term vision for their school system.

* Establishing and maintaining a basic organizational structure for their school system, including hiring a superintendent, adopting an annual budget and governance policies, and creating a climate that promotes excellence.

* Establishing systems and processes to ensure accountability to the community, including fiscal accountability, accountability for programs and student performance, staff accountability and collective bargaining.

* Advocacy in behalf of children and public education at the community, state and national levels.

What kind of person do you need to fill such a position?

Obviously, you need board members who represent the community, possess a variety of styles and backgrounds and have a diversity of views. There is no perfect school board member model, but there are a number of basic characteristics that effective board members have in common:

* Effective board members have a clear understanding of their leadership duties and of their central, powerful role in providing quality education. They are also aware that power flows from the community, through them, to the school system and that they are accountable to the community and to society at large.

* They understand the importance of teamwork. They know they need to work with their board colleagues and staff. They know schools don’t operate in a vacuum, so they need to collaborate with other public agencies and form partnerships with business to make sure we have created communities healthy for children and schools that elicit the best from all students.

* They have a positive attitude and are able to engender an atmosphere of creative, high-energy productivity.

* They are respectful--able to listen well to colleagues and constituents and to mobilize the best efforts of their staff.

* They have integrity and are worthy of the community’s trust.

* They communicate openly and honestly.

* They behave with a high level of professionalism, setting a tone for the entire district that communicates the importance and seriousness of the endeavor for which they are responsible.

* They operate with fairness, firmness, stability, sustained effort and consistency.

In addition, board members must dedicate the necessary time to perform their duties well. An effective board member can easily spend up to 20 hours a week in meetings, taking phone calls, talking with students, parents, teachers, school personnel and constituents, visiting schools, and reading or attending workshops and seminars to continually expand their capacity to understand and support education reform issues. Being a board member is a major commitment and sacrifice of family, career and leisure time to public service. The candidate you vote for should not be making that commitment lightly.

Board members must be resilient. They must be able to maintain their focus on making a positive difference even under fire. In a democracy, you cannot please everyone, but you make sure the greater good for the most people is served. Even if you receive criticism from some, while acknowledging their right to feel as they do, you must have the fortitude to lead systems forward in response to the wishes of the majority.

Effective board members are future-focused change agents who have patience. They know change is an ongoing process, and to move school systems forward more rapidly than ever before means taking the time to engender public understanding, support and participation.

Most of all, the board members you elect must have a passionate commitment to public schools and to educating all children.

They must have a passion for democracy, with a true understanding that their role is to implement the will of the majority, not to impose their own will on other people’s children.

Every single voter has the ability to move the schools of their communities and this state forward. The first step? Vote wisely on Nov. 8.