Presents excerpts from Pasco (Washington) school board meeting minutes beginning with 1885. (JM)

Considers the issues in Board of Education v. Pico, a case involving a school board's order removing several books from a school library. Notes that the U.S. Supreme Court's review of the case failed to clarify whether school board authority or constitutionally protected rights should prevail in such cases. (PGD)

Presents time management tips, especially for board of education members, including recommendations to realize that managing time is a skill, develop a more accurate sense of how one's time is spent, examine and reestablish goals, learn to say no, organize files and information, and master the telephone. (Author/JM)

Presents four essential characteristics of good conduct for school board members: patience, tolerance, readiness to consider advice from outsiders, and humor. (Author/JM)

A cost/benefit analysis technique is recommended for school board members who need to evaluate alternatives presented for board action. The model involves four parts: product and evaluation, alternatives, cost analysis, and cost/benefit comparison. (Author/WD)

If the ancient Roman triumph slaves existed today, one would be stationed in the crowd at public meetings to provide school board members with accurate information on educational issues. (JM)

Argues that it is not in the board of education's best interests to agree beforehand to a fact finder's report and suggests ways in which the board can prepare the community for the board's response to such a report. (IRT)

Discusses school board policies concerning teachers' employment outside the schools. (IRT)

Board members would be wise to use their power to keep superfluous or worthless innovations from wasting time and strangling schools. (Author/IRT)

Policy is a school board's most powerful tool for improving the academic performance of students under its jurisdiction. District policies should be crafted carefully and assessed against certain criteria: measurable improvement for all students, focus on learning outcomes, measurement and reporting requirements, and staff training and development…

Describes several common mistakes made by school boards, for example, failing to create a comprehensive school charter and hiring too many paid consultants; asserts that boards must avoid these mistakes and adopt practices that contribute to the strategic governance of schools. (PKP)

Superintendents usually do a fine job of preparing documents for their boards by paying close attention to detail. They are masters of finished staff work. Reports are not only meticulously crafted, they also are transmitted to the board far enough in advance to allow for careful review. However, despite these well-intended efforts, many board…

This article presents an interview with Cassandra Barnett, a school library media specialist at Fayetteville (Arkansas) High School. She is also a member of the AASL Learning Standards Rewrite Task Force, which has been working on developing AASL's new National Learning Standards. Fayetteville schools experienced multiple challenges during…

The local school board has traditionally been the predominant control mechanism for public education in this country. Since the 1970s however, increased legislation and reform in statehouses across the nation have functioned to reduce the discretion enjoyed by local boards. This paper represents an attempt to sketch this increase in state…

Kentucky has witnessed many changes in educational administration. An assessment of those changes, with a focus on school boards, was done. School boards are not efficient bodies and this is not a problem. If efficiency was the top concern, then minimizing time and costs would be dominant and schools would suffer. School boards are not…