You have been asked to join a school board

Imagine you have been approached to join a school board.  You are seen as an ideal candidate who could bring a fresh perspective to board discussions.  You have done your own due diligence research, and found that you not only understand but embrace the school’s Mission and Core Values.  Although busy with work and family commitments, you sense that serving on a school board – and especially THIS school board – could enable you to serve others and make a contribution which benefits hundreds of young people whose education has been entrusted to the school.  You realise that some people are attracted to sit on school boards because it looks good on their CVs, but ego is not a factor in your thinking.  Rather, you wholeheartedly embrace the idea that being on a school board is a privilege of service to others.

You have been invited to the school for a tour of the campus.  Although you expect to see Grade 1 students who ooze cuteness, meet some specially selected celebrity teachers and spend time in the school’s newest and most impressive facilities, the focus of your visit will be a discussion with the Principal and the Board Chair over coffee and cakes prepared and served by some senior Home Science students.

This meeting will present you with a valuable opportunity to observe at first-hand what is usually regarded as “the most important relationship in the school” – the interaction between the Board Chair and the Principal.  For example, if the Board Chair hands the task of answering most of the questions over to the Principal, or if the Principal is excessively deferential to the Board Chair, that should be a warning sign that their working relationship lacks the healthy balance required for effective Board-Management relations.

You already understand that any school thrives only when its board is well-led and its day-to-day operations are well-managed.  Furthermore, you believe that an effective board is measured not only by statistics, but by its organisation as a learning environment that ensures diverse voices and perspectives are heard and treated with respect.

As someone who is innately curious about everything in life and loves to ask questions, you have decided to prepare for your visit to the school by posing some questions to the Principal and the Board Chair.  Some of your questions will be a continuation of your due diligence enquiries, such as the state of the school’s finances, its level of debt, its financial viability, its known legal and financial risks, and so on.  This discussion does not have to be a boring, mechanical exercise, and might even include a question such as “if the school received an anonymous donation of $25 million next month, what would you do with those funds?’.

You hope to be inspired by the school and its board, so you have thought of several other questions that you would like to ask the Board Chair in the presence of the Principal.  You don’t know ahead of time whether you will ask them all because you don’t yet know the dynamics of your meeting, but you want to be prepared.  So, depending on how the meeting proceeds, these are some of the questions you may ask:

• “How long have you been Board Chair, and when does your term of office expire?”  The answer to this question should initiate a discussion about board stability, composition, and term limits.
• “What is the board’s process for managing the succession of board positions and for the Principal’s position?” This question should open up a discussion on how this relates to the desired skills matrix and priorities for populating the board.  It may also allow a frank discussion about the Principal’s future plans; if not, any evasive responses may be revealing in themselves.
• “As Board Chair, how do you manage a board that comprises a diverse set of volunteers?”  After a brief description of board members’ diversity, this question should provide some insight into board discipline and whether the Chair seems capable of admonishing miscreant board members if, and when, required.  This is a key skill in managing effective, efficient, productive, respectful board meetings.
• “Why do you serve as Board Chair when it is a huge amount of work that is often thankless and done out of sight of others?”  This question is designed to gain a personal insight into the Board Chair’s personality, motivation, commitment and priorities.
• “Related to the previous question, how do you measure your own success and the success of the board?”  This question should reveal something about the effectiveness of the board’s processes for internal and external performance reviews, both of the board as a whole and of individual board members.  It should also reveal the extent to which board members feel a sense of belonging and commitment to their board work.
• “Do you feel board members receive sufficient professional development in governance to perform their tasks effectively?”  Whether the answer to this question is ‘yes’ or ‘no’, it should provide some important insights into the board’s expectations and professionalism.
• “What do you see as the biggest challenges that the board needs to address in the foreseeable future?”  The answer to that question will probably take the rest of the afternoon!

Of course, you may want to share these questions with the Board Chair before your visit to the school to avoid any sense of entrapment.  After all, most boards work that operate effectively do so in a transparent, conversational environment of “no surprises” that builds trust and mutual respect; you would probably want to model that same approach as a prospective board member.