How school board presidents view the communication behaviors of their superintendents was addressed in a doctoral dissertation by H. Steve Sprunger at Purdue University. His study examined the communication behaviors and perceived leadership strength of superintendents as perceived by board presidents. This study was conducted by sending out the…

In the past, boards of education were created to run school districts. But as expectations of educators grew, a cadre of professional administrators developed who were capable of operating school districts quite well. What boards of education bring to the table is the link with local needs of the community in public education. This is far…

Isn't it ironic that the one organization with the power to set the direction for schools, the board of education, is the one organization whose members are often randomly selected, rarely evaluated and almost never held accountable to measurable standards of excellence? The author's premise is simple: Better boards of education mean better…

Marcy Dutton, a lawyer and associate director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators, believes that Superintendents are prone to practice law and sometimes practice it badly. Because school leaders, and superintendents in particular, are take-charge people, they want to function as armchair lawyers. In other words, they have just…

A school board's ability to govern and the superintendent's ability to lead is undermined when an individual board member assumes the role of the Lone Ranger. While the Lone Ranger can be identified in several different ways, a few common styles of behavior are typically present. Those behavior styles are discusses in this article.

In most districts, the evaluation of superintendents by the members of the board of education takes place in executive session of the board behind closed doors. Few board members or superintendents question the status quo. Most evaluation forms are merely collections of subjective checklists that catalog approved personality traits, attributes,…

Discusses legal issues involved in conducting school board business over the Internet. (PKP)

Describes how superintendents can help school board meetings operate more efficiently. (PKP)

School administrators must speak out when single-issue or "stealth" groups threaten to take over a school board. Administrators can help ensure that election campaigns stimulate community debate, discussion, and consensus about educational directions. They must know how to remove the cover from stealth candidates, respond to the public,…

Describes practical benefits of one Tennessee school district's decision to provide its school board members with laptop computers to access monthly school board meeting agenda packets. (PKP)

Every superintendent eventually has to deal with "The Bomb." This refers to a loaded question from a board member dropped at an inopportune moment in a public meeting when the superintendent has been given no time to prepare an informed response. The superintendent's typical reactions include the "deer in the headlights" look, a big gulp or even a…

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…

In February 2005, The Dallas Morning News published a multipart series on steroid use among high school students in Texas. The paper's four-month investigation was wide-ranging, but shined a particular spotlight upon alleged abuses in the 13,700-student Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District, north of Dallas. Use of steroids and other…

School boards and labor unions can benefit from a shared-revenue model. Labor costs would be contractually tied to available revenue, rather than to fixed expenses. Labor would have greater fiscal authority than under traditional collective bargaining and a real incentive to manage its own fiscal resources, since it could keep what it saved. An…

Describes the superintendent's role in training members of the school board to lead. (PKP)