A home-schooling parent in Maine ran for, and was elected to, the local school board. His goals were to educate other board members about home schooling and serve as an example of a home schooler and a public school board working toward the common goal of educating children. (MLF)

Most school boards want those initial months of warm regard between the board and a new superintendent to continue indefinitely. However, trust can break down for a number of reasons. Offers eight suggestions for superintendents to prolong the honeymoon. (MLF)

The board and superintendent can reduce the friction and strengthen their relationship if they can understand one another's role in the school system. Cites some examples of inappropriate board behavior. Offers eight suggestions to board members to prolong the honeymoon. (MLF)

A retiring superintendent advises his school board to look deep beneath the surface and encourage candidates with superior speaking and writing skills. Boards should be leery of spotlight-grabbers, process-lovers, faddists, and yes-people and seek tough peacemakers with high expectations for staff. Looking beyond the norm will increase the…

A veteran school board member and survivor of numerous restructuring efforts recounts the Leon County (Florida) School District's experience with strategic planning. Although the process was at time chaotic, Roger Kaufman's planning model helped the board create a climate for change and develop a definitive vision and realistic action plan. (MLH)

The Denver, Colorado, school board has an agenda summary sheet that streamlines communication between the board and staff members. The form, placed after the title sheet of any proposal, lists background issues, options and alternatives considered, and implications of adoption or rejection. (MLF)

A school administrator who has served as a consultant on many superintendent searches offers 10 selection tips. Board members should refrain from criticizing the former superintendent, advertise for applicants, invest sufficient funds, specify selection criteria, be honest about salary, work diligently during screening and evaluation, honor…

For school executives, annuities have become the preferred retirement vehicle, because other private-sector investments (some deferred compensation and profit-sharing plans) are closed to public employees. This article explains Internal Revenue Code sections 403 (b) and 457 and 1986 Tax Reform Act provisions related to tax-sheltered annuity plans.…

Presents advice on how common sense, research, and good mentoring can be used to improve relationships between school superintendents and school board members. The need for clarity; timely, consistent, mutually-supportive communication; and trust are emphasized. (GR)

Explores the tension between professional control of schools through educational administrators and lay governance as provided by a board of education as this tension relates to issues of student diversity. New models of school governance are considered for their effects of teacher professionalism with respect to student diversity. A particular…

Discusses the value of full-time school librarians, including their positive effect on academic achievement. (PKP)

Georgia superintendent describes the process and benefits of his district becoming a charter-school district. (PKP)

Provides advice to a superintendency candidate based on personal experience on what to do and what to look for before accepting the position. (PKP)

One critical element to maintaining a close, productive and enduring partnership with the governing board is a well-designed and executed process for board evaluation of the superintendent's performance. For the board's evaluation to be a powerful partnership-building tool, it must be based on two sets of performance targets. The two basic steps…

In this article, the author discusses how superintendents function in an environment of nearly continuous turbulence challenged by concerns and pressures that compete for their attention and resolution. The turbulence is inescapable. Today it constitutes the natural--but not the exceptional--environment of school board politics, local…