School Board Gets A Lesson On Working Collectively And Efficiently

By Susan Coney

When the Newtown Board of Education met on Tuesday, August 30, it was not a typical board meeting. The board members sat down for a lesson in how to perform as a collective board more efficiently.

Superintendent Evan Pitkoff asked Robert Rader, executive director for the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE) to give a brief presentation to the board on working together effectively. CABE is Connecticut’s nonprofit association of local and regional boards of education dedicated to serving the needs of local school districts.

CABE offers a number of information and management services to boards of education and their administrative teams. They also provide legal and negotiation services to boards and advocate their interests in Hartford and on a national level in Washington, D.C., through a very active government relations program.

Mr Rader indicated that a school board is responsible primarily for two things: reviewing and following the policy manual and hiring, supporting, and evaluating the superintendent. He continued by saying that it is imperative for individuals to drop their party affiliations at the door when they act as part of a school board.

Mr Rader emphasized that as a board member, the individual has no more power away from the table than any other citizen. “When a member of the community approaches you with a problem relating to the school system,” he said, “your job is not to fix the problem but to simply refer them to the proper chain of command in order for them to properly handle the problem.”

All of the board members agreed that party differences never interfered with how they related to one another in working as a cohesive team.

The length of meetings emerged as an issue that was important to every member as well as the superintendent. Mr Rader assured the board that this is a common problem for many boards and suggested strategies on how the meetings could be run more efficiently.

Mr Rader suggested that the superintendent and the board chairperson set the agenda for the meetings. He recommended that the board use a consent agenda for their meetings, which is when a list of actions is grouped together and can be voted on all in one motion, saving considerable time. These are items that are noncontroversial and do not need to be discussed by the board, such as the accepting of a donation or the appointment of a sports coach. At any time an individual board member may pull something from the consent agenda for further clarification or discussion prior to voting.

Another suggestion offered to help in shortening the meetings is to set a time limit on public participation. “It is the job of the chairperson to be the timekeeper and keep an eye on the length of time devoted to public participation. There needs to be a balance between your time to do board work and giving the public an opportunity to speak. Remember a board meeting is a meeting held in public, it is not a public meeting,” Mr Rader emphasized.

Most of the board members said that they felt there was a need to give the public an opportunity to speak. Mr Rader responded by saying that he agreed that it is good to allow public participation, however, the board may want to consider holding only one public participation opportunity rather than the two time slots that they have been allowing.

“Let the public know that you welcome their comments, keep everyone to a two- or three-minute comment period and be sure to give everyone the same amount of time; be fair about that. Also ask that people not just repeat what others have said and only speak if they have something new to add, or ask for a single speaker to act for the collective group. When time runs out welcome them to put their comments in writing to the board,” Mr Rader recommended.

Finally Mr Rader recommended that the board consider doing self-evaluations. CABE provides services to assist boards in confidential self-evaluations. The CABE office correlates and reviews the information. “It’s a great way for boards to gather more information about themselves and can often lead to obvious goals,” Mr Rader said.