Gene Tavernetti: Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom.
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I Am Gene Tavernetti the host for this podcast.
And my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching.
A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords.
Only stuff that
works.
Something new for us today, and that is a topic we have not discussed yet, and that is school boards.
And I am so happy today to have a very expert guest to talk about school boards.
And that's AJ Rabble.
AJ serves as the National Director of Governance at the Council of Great City Schools.
He recently served as the conservator at DeSoto, Texas Independent School District.
As Deputy commissioner at the Texas Education Agency and as Board chair of the Kansas City, Missouri Public Schools, the third edition of his bestselling book, great on their behalf, why School Boards Fail.
How You Can Be Effective was released last month.
I am not embarrassed to say I learned a lot from AJ and was very surprised about what I thought I knew was absolutely wrong.
I think you're gonna like this one.
Good morning, aj.
Welcome to Better Teaching Only Stuff that Works.
Gene, thanks for having me on the show.
Well, I was very excited to have a chance to talk to you about school boards.
It's an, it's a an issue that we haven't brought up before, but it's an issue that.
Every school that we work with, you know, has to worry about.
Yeah.
So it makes sense that we understand that more.
And I think especially the people who get so frustrated about what's going on with schools, if we have a better understanding about a governing board than I think we'll be a little bit more understanding of what's going on or more critical.
Either, you know, it goes both ways.
So, so you have lots of experience not only being on boards, but working with school boards.
Now you're part of the greater council of schools.
It's organization.
Can you talk about that a little bit?
Yeah.
Organization, the largest urban school systems in the country that came together about 70 years ago and said, you know, we have a lot in common and we should support each other.
And that's in all aspects of public school systems, you know, from transportation and food service to instruction.
And in my case, governance.
Now when you work with these, the largest school districts in the United States, what are the common issues?
Because you talked about you, you know, from the beginning you talked about transportation, you talked, you know, we're talking about feeding kids, we're talking about all of these things.
And then at the end of your sentence, you said, and governance.
Well, most of what's going on in public education looks pretty sim I mean, food service looks pretty similar wherever you go.
The, I mean, the big difference with large urbans is the scale.
It's just different if you're feeding a thousand kids.
Once a day versus if you're feeding a hundred thousand kids three times a day, I mean the, you know, it's just a scale issue.
Same thing with transportation.
You know, it's different if you are trying to put together a busing system that covers 300 square miles versus a busing system that just covers 10 square miles.
The differences of scale, whether kind of geographic scale and rural and population scale and urban are significant factors.
But.
at its core, you know, third graders or third graders, you know, eighth graders or eighth graders and you know, they're gonna have a variety of needs.
And school systems just have to figure out how do we create a system that is responsive to the needs of the students that we have so that we can.
Help them improve what they know and are able to do so they can be ready for the next level of learning and live choice field life.
And in that regard, that expectation and that charge exists across all 13,000 school systems in the country.
And that focus is really what your work is what you're truly trying to get the boards to do, is to focus on that learning for those students about how you move them along.
Is that different?
I, is that different from large school district to large school district?
Not not even a little bit whether it's large, small massive, tiny and.
I've worked with districts with 150 students.
I've worked with districts with way over 150,000 students.
And the core charge of the board doesn't change.
Like I said, the scale changes and so obviously there are details that change, but the core mission of the board is the exact same to represent the vision of values of the community in such a way that student outcomes improve.
And that doesn't change.
I mean, the reason school systems exist.
Is constant school systems exist for one reason and one reason only.
And that's to cause improvements in what children no one are able to do so they can live a choice filled life.
And that's true.
That's the same thing the parents in your neighborhood want the same thing that parents in my neighborhood want.
Well, I think.
Well, let's just go there.
I think you, you're saying that the parents want that, but it looks very different to some parents what's gonna happen in, in some neighborhoods or in their particular school.
So when we're talking about working with all of these schools, there's a main goal of, I want my kids to learn, but what they learn and how they learn.
Is expressed very differently.
Oh, absolutely.
But that's because the context is just different.
You know, I'm thinking one particular school system, it was really important in their community.
The children had access to learning about.
Underwater welding.
Meanwhile I'm thinking about a very different school system where it's really important to them that children had access to education about animal husbandry.
And I'm thinking of yet another school system where it's really important to them.
The kids had access to classes that would teach them how to code.
Now, as you can probably surmise, these are in three very different parts of the country and are really responsive to kind of local industries and things of that nature.
What doesn't change is that parents want their kids to have the knowledge and skills necessary to live a choice filled life, that they can live a life of meaning, of their own intention, of their own choosing their own agency and take care of themselves, their loved ones, and their communities.
Like that is the constant, but certainly the details of what that looks like from community to community is certainly gonna vary.
How does how does a a school board member learn about that they want underwater welding or that they want, you know, a classic education or that they want these things?
Is it really you know.
Community members coming to the board and speaking?
Or is it the superintendent comes to the board with what they've learned?
What kind of, what's the flow of of information?
Yeah.
So first and foremost, it is important.
The job of the board is to represent the vision of values of the community.
It's not the superintendent's job.
The superintendent is not the community's representative.
The job of the superintendent is to implement the vision of values of the community as conveyed to them by the board, but it's the job of the board to represent.
The vision values of community.
And so if the board's gonna do that job, did they actually have to go out and do the listening?
They, they can't allow, you know, a consultant or a staff or a superintendent or anyone else to be a proxy for that.
They actually have to go out and do the work themselves.
And so they and so would not be sufficient to, Hey, we had a meeting and here are the five people who showed up.
So that's the voice of the community, that's absolutely unacceptable.
The reality is that.
Communities, pretty much no matter what size your school system are are gonna require board members to take extra effort to go out and engage in the quality and quantity of listening necessary to really grasp a more holistic view of what is our community's vision for what students should know and be able to do.
And so it's through an intentional campaign of listening that the board members would harvest that insight.
Ideally from a representative sample of their entire community, not just the people who show up at board meetings.
Not just the loudest voice, not just the most influential voice, but really as broad and representational of a cross-sectional community as possible.
And then takes all of that and sits down and.
And developed it into a set of priorities that they then hand to the superintendent.
Now, the superintendent certainly plays a role as the key advisor to the board, but at the end of the day, it's the board's job to identify the priorities, what we refer to as goals and guardrails.
It's the board's job to identify the priorities and then hand those priorities to superintendent and say, Hey here's what our community wants your job's to come up with a plan of action to figure out how to make it happen.
One of the things that has happened as I've gotten older is that I've realized that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was.
And I keep having that realization.
And I think one, one of those ways that manifests is that when I vote for somebody to be my representative, I. I want them to do more than represent my views.
I want them to be a little bit more in informed about those views.
I want them to maybe push back a little bit and maybe we can have some back and forth.
And I'm talking about this in a macro level, just not an individual conversation but I'm hoping that the board, has some insights that I don't have as an individual citizen.
What, what do the, what does a board member need to know about education I'll allow.
So, so, so what's their level of expertise with regard to education?
What should be expected?
By somebody who votes them?
Men who's represented being represented.
This is a really important point, Jean is, and this is a point I think a lot of America gets wrong.
The job of the board is to represent the vision and the values of the community.
That is the unique area.
The board has the expertise in.
What is our community's vision for what children should know and be able to do?
What are our non-negotiable values as a community?
That is the unique expertise that the board brings to the organization.
The board is not an education expert.
The board is not a finance expert.
The board is not a legal expert.
The board is not a construction expert.
The board is not a football expert.
I, there are all these things that boards wind up having to vote on a way in on certainly, but none of that is the expertise of the board.
That's the reason the board isn't the one going out and creating all these recommendations.
It's professional staff who are experts in these area, who have expertise in these areas who are making the recommendations.
And then the board's job is to evaluate the recommendations.
Try to figure out what amount of alignment is there between this recommendation and the vision of values of the community.
That's really the basis on which the board is making a decision, not on an expertise.
Oh, well I know how to educate second graders in science.
Ergo here is the decision to make.
That's not the decision that the board is making.
What the board is really, you know, inquiring into is.
Okay, here's a recommendation from a superintendent.
Does this honor the community's vision for what children should know and be able to do, or while honoring the community's non-negotiable values that can't be violated?
And so because that's the case.
As long as school board members are willing to put in the work and have the judgment necessary to represent the vision values of the community, then they're fully qualified to serve on the school board.
You know, there's this misconception that, oh, well you have to have all of these credentials and all these other things to serve on the board, you know?
But that's deeply problematic because the moment you say that, you're saying that there's a specific subsection of.
Our parent body who are somehow disqualified from serving on the school board that they lack the necessary, you know, qualifications or pedigree to be on the school board.
I think that's deeply problematic.
And so the moment you recognize that it's case, you realize, okay, so if that's not the, if that's not the qualification, what is the qualification is they're willing to put in the work and they have the judgment necessary to represent the vision and values of the community, and they rely on the professional expertise of staff.
To make recommendations and then they compare those recommendations with their understanding of the community's vision of values.
You know, I can imagine well in my community where I live that people will run for a school board seat and as they their platform will include, well, I was teacher negotiating.
Teacher, you know, I was on the student, I was on the teacher's union.
I understand the negotiating process or you know, they have, other ed, educational, other educational, oh yeah, absolutely.
E, e experiences.
Is that a is that a positive or a negative?
'Cause I also, I grew up in a small town and we had local business people.
You know, on and it was a very microeconomic view of business.
And I think it, I don't know if it helped or hindered making the decisions based on what you're talking about understanding understanding the role of the board.
I mean, the way you gotta think about this is if I drove a school bus for 20 years.
And I get on the school board, does that mean we no longer need a transportation director?
'cause I know about this stuff, so I'll just make the calls.
It, I mean, does that sound logical to you?
And the moment it doesn't, the moment you realize that sounds absurd.
Is the moment you realize, okay, then that's clearly not the job.
So yeah.
Are there board members with individual expertise?
Some board members may be an attorney, some board members may have been an educator, some board members may have been an accountant.
But the moment you realize we're not gonna rep, get rid of our CFO, just because one of the board members knows how to count to 10, like, we're not gonna do that.
And so the moment you realize that's.
That's not the game plan.
It starts to inform that, okay, so clearly that's not the job of the board is to try to replace the CFO.
It's not the job of the board to replace the transportation director, which means it's also not the job of the board to replace the teacher to try to replace the judgment.
In capacity of the teachers with their own judgment and capacity, or the principals or the superintendent or the maintenance director or the athletic director then instead their job clearly has to be something else.
The other thing that helps solidify this is if your child, you know, Gina, if your child was sick, would you want them to go to you or would you want them to go to a medical professional?
Yeah.
They have expertise.
Yeah.
I mean, that's their job.
That's their job when it comes to the welfare of children.
Yeah.
We want to connect the needs of children with the expertise of adults when it comes to the welfare of children.
We want people with expertise in an area.
Making the call in the same way that you wouldn't, you know, I'm sure you probably love your family members, but if your kid's sick, you're not taking 'em to the family members, you're taking 'em to somebody who actually has expertise.
Right, right.
And how do I help my kid get better?
Well, it's the same thing is true in a school system is when we need when we.
Food service managed effectively.
We don't go to someone just because of they're on the school board.
We say, okay, who actually has the most expertise and let's actually hire that person to make it their job.
They'll be over food service.
And so that's the moment we recognize that.
We realize that none of those things are the function of the board.
And so there may be board members who have some type of lived expertise, that's perfectly fine, but that's not actually why they got elected to the board.
Nobody's ever elected someone to the board who goes, oh, well you, you know, drove a bus for 20 years, so we should elect you to the board.
'cause then we won't need a transportation director anymore.
Like, nobody's thinking that.
And the way you know that nobody's thinking that is you ask yourself this question.
If someone had all knowledge about education, they were the most amazing teacher in the state.
They were the most effective educator ever.
And they run for the school board.
If you found out that they, you know, were a Nazi on the weekend or were in the k, KK on the weekends, would you still vote for that person to be on the school board?
And the moment you say no, which I'm assuming you'd say no that points out that you're not actually selecting school board members for their educational expertise.
You're selecting them for their values alignment, that you have a set of values in mind of what makes sense to you, and you want someone who's gonna represent your values on the school board, who on your behalf, will bring their values to bear.
And so even if you had the best educator, the most talented, the most acclaimed educate in the world, if you found out that there was a radical values misalignment, you never vote for them.
Because we intrinsically understand that when we go to the ballot box, what we're really looking for is someone to represent our vision and values, not someone who has operational expertise.
So is operational expertise sometimes a bonus for board members?
Yes, but it doesn't.
It's not to be conflated with the idea that the board is now an education expert just because one out of seven board members has some educational expertise or that the board is now a transportation expert.
Just 'cause one out of seven board members has some transportation expertise.
You realize in that moment that's they have that.
And that can be valuable, but it's not.
It is fundamentally not the reason they were selected by the community.
They were selected because of their perceived alignment with the vision and values of the community.
And that tells you that is their expertise.
And so they need to focus on tasks that require that expertise.
The expertise of implementing the vision values of the community is a separate skill set entirely, and that's what you should really select a superintendent for and then let them do the work of implementation.
A little bit about the work that you do?
Again, I don't have any expertise at all with regards to school boards except for the fact that.
I was always working for one.
Yeah.
And it's clear when boards are getting along.
It's clear when they seem to be functioning well even, and they may not be functioning in the manner in which with the goals that, that you're espousing but at least they're functional.
I have a feeling that you, so a lot of your business might be, you get called in when they're not functioning well.
And you know, how do we get these guys to work together?
What does that look like?
What are some common issues?
What are some things that you need to work on with school boards?
Yeah.
When we think about workability, there's really two for school boards.
There's really two domains you wanna think about.
There's professionalism and so that really answers the question, can this group of people function such that they can conduct the business of the institution?
So that's the question of professionalism.
Can they conduct themselves in a manner that allows 'em to conduct the business of the institution?
Like if you have a bunch of board members who just hate each other and you know, they can't get along and they refuse to show up and they can never get a quorum.
Well, we would say that as a highly unprofessional board.
And we don't mean that in a pejorative sense.
We just mean that in that they clearly aren't conducting themselves in a manner that allows 'em to conduct the business of the institution.
And so when we think about a. When we think about a board you know, functionality or dysfunctionality, there's really these two dimensions and one of those professionalism, and that's what most people think about.
And I'm actually, that's the one that I'm least concerned about.
Like 99.9% of board members out here generally have, you know, a well-developed sense of professional behavior.
They can manage that part.
That that's not my top concern because the other dimension of functionality or dysfunctionality.
Is effectiveness and where professionalism asks the question, can this body conduct itself in a way that allows business to be conducted?
Effectiveness asks the question, can this body focus on improving student outcomes?
Is its reason for existing.
And so what happens?
You have to have some way of looking at, is this board actually focused on children learning?
Is it actually focused on children growing and what they know and are able to do?
That's the effective range of the spectrum, and this is actually the much more dangerous area where many more boards fail.
Many boards can be very professional.
They conduct themselves and they conduct businesses.
They use Roberts roll of war or whatever.
They do all the professional things.
But they never actually dial in to focusing on our children, actually learning, our children actually growing.
Are they actually getting the promise of education that we owe them as a community?
That is a core dysfunction of school boards, not the professionalism part.
They can normally sort that out, like we all see the few times where that doesn't happen 'cause those blow up in the media.
But honestly, that is a drop in the bucket.
The vast majority of boards.
Can actually manage the professional professionalism part where they're failing children is on the effectiveness part, that they're not actually dialed in.
And so you'll watch hours and hours of board meetings and no one will ever have a conversation about is little AJ learning?
Did little Gene actually leave here with more knowledge and skills that he arrived with?
Instead it's conversations about, you know, what's the color of the football uniform and let's talk about the cheerleader constitution.
And let's talk about, you know, did you know my cousin get a job and, you know, did you know my sister, you know, get a contract?
And we get so focused in on all of these other things.
And the conversation never makes it back to, did our students actually learn?
Did they actually grow and what they know and are able to do, that's the core dysfunctional boards.
Not that they fail to be professional, though, that happens at times the core dysfunctional boards is that they fail to be effective.
They fail to focus on improving student outcomes, but you're working with school boards on outcomes.
What is a baseline of knowledge that they need to have about instruction, about what happens in classrooms, curriculum, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, to be able to make those big decisions.
So, I know it sounds radical, but I would say they don't.
Because that's, even if the, even if one or two or three of the board members have some insight in that, it would never be appropriate for the board as a whole to subjugate its collective judgment to the judgment of the two or three people on the board who have that as a background.
So that can't be the driving factor of how the board's making decisions.
Do we have the expertise or not?
Because the moment that's true.
That means if there's any topic that comes up where the board doesn't have expertise, that means they just shouldn't vote.
Oh.
Well, we don't have a mechanic on the board, so that means we shouldn't vote on anything related to repairing buses.
No, of course they're still gonna vote on that.
And so now the question is, okay, then.
If they're still gonna vote on that, on what basis are they voting?
And that's when it becomes clear.
It's not based, it's on the expertise of that specific topic.
It's based on some other expertise.
Well, what is that?
It's the expertise and the vision and values of the community.
And so every time something comes up for the board.
For their consideration.
What the board has to do collectively is figure out what is the alignment between what is being asked here with the community's vision, which students should know and be able to do, and the community's non-negotiable values that have to be honored.
That's the judgment call that the board is making, not do I like or dislike this strategy?
Do I agree or disagree?
Do I think this is the right strategy?
The wrong strategy is that the strategy that I would pick?
That's actually not the judgment call the board's making the judgment call.
The board's actually making is.
Is this in alignment with the community's vision and values?
And because that is otherwise amorphous, the first step that a board has to take is actually have to write the vision values down and make 'em plain.
And that's what we refer to as goals and guardrails, where the board is just very explicitly articulated smart goals about what students should know and be able to do.
So then they have a real.
Solid North Star for evaluating everything.
You bet you bring before a superintendent.
Show us how it aligns with accomplishing this smart goal about what students should know and be able to do.
That's the judgment call.
The boards are really called to make now.
I get it.
People are twisted.
'cause I made the same mistake in a previous career.
I was a computer programmer.
And so trust and believe, Jean, I got on the school board and all of a sudden I was examining every piece of technology in the district.
Hey, how come you know this computer monitor is 500 years old and you know, this accounting software is 800 years old, and well, what are we gonna do to get this together?
And I spent all my time talking about the technology.
I didn't spend any time asking what evidence do we have that children are actually learning and growing?
And more importantly, I didn't ask.
The really fundamental question is.
Is the highest leverage thing that our children need right now.
Better computer monitors and better accounting software.
But I didn't ask those questions because my focus wasn't children.
And the moment, Jane, that I was focused on the technology, who was my actual focus?
Good students.
Definitely was not the student.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's in the moment that I was focused on talking about technology.
Who was my actual focus?
You.
It was act, it was 100% me.
Yeah.
It had nothing to do with the children.
It was 100% me.
And this is the trap that so many board members fall into.
It's like, Ooh, I have this expertise.
I have this one thing that I can bring.
So I'll just focus on that.
But that's about you.
Being on the school board can't be about you.
It has to be about the children.
It has to be about what do they need.
And so if I was really being focused on children, I wouldn't be thinking about what is my expertise?
Oh, I was a teacher, I was a lawyer, I was a finance person.
I was a computer programmer.
I'd be thinking about what are the actual needs of our students that are most holding them back from the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in living a choice field life.
And then I try to get those ranked out from what are the five most important and techno gene technology is gonna be on that list, but it's probably gonna be like number 50.
It's definitely not gonna be the top five.
And so if I'm actually focusing on student outcomes, then I abandon the thing that I know technology, which is number 50 on the list, and I devote myself to whatever items, number one, two, and three are.
That's what it means to be student outcomes focused, is that I betray my own expertise.
I set aside my own ego the, my self-aggrandizement.
I put that on the back shelf and instead of showing up and saying, here's what I know, here's my expertise, I devote myself to figuring out what is their children actually need that's most going to set them up for success.
And if it happened to be computer monitors, gene, I don't know, maybe in your expertise you found the community.
Community computer monitors was the critical aspect to get kids over the hump.
That's just not been my experience.
And so the moment you realize that the individual expertise, the board members bring.
Can't be the focus of the board, that the focus of the board has to be, what is it that our children actually need?
What's most holding them back?
And you try to figure out a prioritized list of those.
That's what all the community listening is about.
That's why getting feedback and insights from the superintendent is so vital.
And then you say, okay, these are the three most important things, then this is what we're gonna be focused on.
And the, am I saying that computer monitors don't matter?
No, I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying they're not the top priority.
For the board.
And so the board needs to focus on whatever the prop priority is.
So when you work with a board you go in I I'm wondering about the actual work that.
That, that you do, because I can imagine, you know, what you just described, you're talking about how a board has to function what they, that they're doing, but you're also talking about what the relationship should be with the superintendent.
Yeah.
And then I'm wondering how far down the org chart do you go in your training?
Because then you've got the soup who maybe he's the, maybe he's the guy who.
You know, needs the new monitors, you know, and so, and so, so how far down, not how far down, what's the breadth of the training that you have to do, who do you need to bring in to make the board effective?
Yeah, so definitely, you know, this is a keen insight on your park because the board definitely.
It can't be effective on its own.
It's really hard for a board to perform without you know, the respectful and appropriate support from their superintendent.
And in general the staff of the school system.
Partially because the board aren't obligated to be.
Kind of technical experts in any particular area.
So they do need support from folks who do have technical expertise in the various areas of school system operation.
And so the board can't be really effective without its staff.
But the converse is also true.
It's really hard for a superintendent to outperform the board.
Like if a superintendent has the capacity here, but the board's capacity is here and your superintendent's pretty much hanging out here from day to day.
And so there is this mutuality where the board has to level itself up constantly looking, how do we grow, how do we improve?
And the superintendents ideally doing the exact same thing.
Constantly looking at how do I grow as a superintendent, how do I grow in my ability to implement the vision of values while the board is figuring out how to grow?
And it's capacity to represent the vision of values.
And so the, there is.
This overlapping mutuality between the two.
There is not an overlapping set of duties.
However there are board duties and there are superintendent duties, and these don't actually overlap.
The board makes decisions about what is within its sphere of control and it.
It controls those things.
It focuses on those things.
And then anything that the board doesn't retain for itself, then it's delegating to the superintendent saying all these other things you have to go, this is what we hired you to go manage.
And so that is there.
There isn't a overlapping Venn diagram of board duties and superintendent duties.
It is the board defining what is our work that we're gonna do.
And then anything that the board doesn't claim for itself is board work that's explicitly delegating to the superintendent as superintendent work.
And that's how the delegation of duties winds up shaking out.
And it's not actually.
All that complicated.
Once you have a core idea that the thing that needs to drive the delegation of duties is expertise.
One, once you can wrap your head around the idea that if my kid is not well, I want someone with expertise in that.
Not I love my kid, but me loving my kid isn't the qualifying factor for who will take care of my kid when they are ill.
It's who has expertise.
And will love on my kid.
Love isn't necessary, but just insufficient.
And so the, in the same way that would be true in my home, the same is true in the school system.
The board its way of loving children is to create the conditions where people with expertise in the various things that children need are brought to bear and given the freedom necessary to actually.
Implement the vision values of the community while the board describes and dictates what the vision values are.
But that's, that is a general high level overview of what the separation of duties are.
But that it's derived from the board.
And then the superintendent takes whatever is handed to them from the board and says, okay, then I've got the rest of this.
I'll put together a team to go execute one of the, one of the main.
You didn't say this, but this is, it's said all the time that one of the main decisions that the board has to make is the hiring of the superintendent.
Mm-hmm.
And then we have I don't know.
I don't know what it was, what it is now.
It used to be, you know, superintendents, the average tenure was like 18 months or 15 half, 15 minutes.
Yeah.
So, so how do we what does that have to say about the board or what does that have to say about how search firms.
Bring candidates to a board and have you ever been involved in searching for a soup or just Oh yeah.
Finding a soup.
That's kind of what I'm interested in hearing what you have to say.
Yeah.
So superintendent search is a a major important topic.
It's not the most important decision a board will make, but it it's probably number two or number three.
For me.
Clearly the single most important decision the board will ever make is what is the focus of the school system?
What are the goals this school system's gonna pursue?
What are the non-negotiable?
Things that students must know and be able to do in the school system that have to be the priority for resource allocation.
And so establishing the priorities, saying Here's what the goals are, here's what the guardrails are, clearly the most important tasks of the board.
And then monitoring progress toward those is really the next, every single month.
Having the superintendent bring evidence of are we making progress relative to the goals?
And guardrails are really the most important things the board does.
Then you know, after that on the list.
Yeah, certainly hiring a superintendent is vital.
But the board has to set the priorities first and then hire a superintendent who has, who can show some evidence that they've actually helped move the needle relative to the priorities.
What, where most boards fail is they hire a superintendent to say, tell us what our community's priorities should be.
This is a failure of governance.
This is a complete abdication of the duties that are uniquely.
Handed to school boards.
The superintendent is not the community's representative, and so they shouldn't be thrust in that role 'cause they lack expertise.
The board has expertise in representation, the superintendent does not.
And so the most important task that the board has is.
I just declaring here's what the priorities are, and then monitoring progress toward those priorities every single month without fail.
But then next down that list, yeah, is certainly hiring a superintendent when it comes to hiring a superintendent.
Then the board should say, here are the priorities.
Show me some evidence that you've actually accomplished these.
And if you can't show me evidence, then that's fine, but you can't be considered.
And so it really requires the board to be really thoughtful about what would.
Provide evidence that a candidate has actually moved the needle in the areas of our goals before.
And it completely changes the way that you would go around, go about seeking out a superintendent because honestly, most candidates aren't going to be able to show meaningful evidence 'cause this work is really hard.
And so most people haven't been successful at it.
And so you're really looking for the needle in the haystack of who are people that have been successful, and they may not look like the person you look like.
It may not be the person you know, or you know the person you're familiar with, you know, or the person in the shiny.
You know, talks a good game.
It may be this quiet person over here who's just, you know, put points on the board for kids year after year.
That would probably be a better selection for superintendent, you know, than, you know, the loud talking, you know, bravado, you know, person who you know, you know, gets everybody fired up.
But when you actually look under the hood, has never actually been in a role that helped them move the needle on improving student outcomes.
So in hiring of superintendency superintendents, would that be something where a client might reach out to you in that, at that point in time, something that they wanted some additional support on?
Yeah, and we certainly provide a lot of, we do not run superintendent searches at all.
Yeah, we definitely don't do that.
Never have, never will.
But we definitely do coach, coach our boards that we're supporting, that we're coaching through the process.
And, you know, we have a full document that we give them, you know, that describes here are all the types of decisions.
We really want school boards to be in the driver's seat of superintendent search process.
A lot of search firms in my opinion, we will put boards in the passenger seat.
They're like, oh, well, we'll go out and we'll do all the listening for your community.
I said, no.
The board represents the vision, values of the community.
The board should do the listening, but most search firms will say, oh, we'll go out and do it for you.
And board will be like, Hey, well, let's work for us.
That sounds great.
It doesn't sound great.
It's a horrible obligation of the duties of the board to go out and conduct the listening itself.
You should not put anybody, not a coach, not a co consultant, not the staff, not anyone between the board.
And its community when it comes to listening for the vision and values of the community.
So that's just one example of where I think the classical relationship between boards and search firms, I think is just completely backwards.
It's putting the search firm in the driver's seat and the board in the passenger seat, and that should absolutely be reversed.
And so that's the type of coaching that we give boards is we, you know, you are the community's representatives.
You should be driving this process with some support.
From a search firm, if you want to use a search, you don't have to use a search firm, but if you're gonna use one just make sure they're in a supporting role and not in a driving role.
You've worked with, you know, you work with large school districts, small school districts I know I live in a county.
I think there are, there might be 35 school boards in this county with many single school districts.
I mean, yeah.
You know, because everybody, nobody wants to be told what to do.
Yeah.
So, so is there though, in your experience like a real aha moment when people realize like, wow this isn't at all what I thought it was gonna be.
Oh, I think pretty much every school board member, if they're gonna be honest with themselves, or at least honest with you, will admit that there is some point after getting onto the school board where they realized.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
I campaigned convincing everybody vote for me.
I know it's gonna take to save the children.
And then I get on the school board.
I don't know what I'm doing, gene.
Like, I love the children and I didn't go out and deceive people.
It's not like I was like, aha, I will convince them.
No I really thought I knew something.
It was only after I got on the board and served for a while that I realized I actually don't know anything about this role.
None whatsoever.
Not even a little bit what I knew about governing effectively.
The day I got elected wouldn't have filled a symbol.
But honestly I think that's true for most of us.
You know, as school board members, we're just people who love children wanna make a difference, are willing to step up in most places, volunteer like I was, you know, in most places, school board members aren't paid who we're volunteers.
And they, we just wanna make a difference for the kids in our community and don't really have a deep insight into what are the nuances of effective school board governance.
For example, most board members when we get elected to the board, or appointed to the board, can't distinguish between professional and unprofessional behavior as distinct from effective in an effective behavior.
They think, oh, well, if we are all just cordial, which is on the professional spectrum, that's synonymous with being effective.
In turn.
In reality, it is not.
Just because you all get along doesn't at all mean that you are focused on our children learning.
We can be very cordial very professional and highly ineffective at the same time.
In fact, that's a, most boards would be described as professionally ineffective.
That they are very professional in their behavior, that we conduct ourselves in a way that allows business to be done, but without ever actually focusing.
Our attention is a governing body on our children learning, and so we're professional.
Ineffective.
And so that's the challenge I think most board members, myself included, certainly fall into, is that the discernment about what it really takes to be focused on student outcomes alludes a lot of us.
And so part of, you know, my work and the work of my team and.
You know, my book and all these other resources, you know, we try to make a lot of it freely available on the website is geared around just trying to get the word out to as many board members as possible.
Hey here's what the actual job is.
It's probably not what you think it was.
It's definitely not.
With the people at the grocery store who, you know, pull you aside, you know, Saturday morning, try, Hey, can you can you get my kid a part on the play?
That's not the function of the school board.
Hey, can you get my kid, you know, my the basketball coaches and play my kid?
What can you do?
I voted for you.
What are you gonna do about that?
Well, this isn't actually the job of the school board.
And so what people, what we often think the job is it is what it is in reality.
Something radically different Again I'm as guilty as anyone of that being true for me.
Look, if I'm being.
Completely honest, like children were harmed.
By my first two years on the school board that I was so ignorant about kind of what is it the boards can do to make a difference for kids that boards can do to make a difference.
I knew what a parent can do.
I knew what a community member could do.
I knew what a volunteer could do, but I was ignorant about what can a board do that's gonna make the most difference for kids?
And in my ignorance.
And you know, it really wasn't until that third, fourth year that I really started to gain a powerful insight into kinda what does effective school board governance look like?
Not just professional school board governance, but actually effective governance is focused on student outcomes.
It really wasn't until my third year on the board that I started to.
To really gain an insight into that.
And what it means is that there are kids who are harmed in my first two years on the school board because of my failure to be able to discern what it is that a board can do that is most effective that's most focused on student outcomes.
You know, I think that I keep saying that, you know, what we have when I look at education, at the discussion about education, that we seem to have several cults.
You know, silos, whatever we wanna call it.
Yeah.
But I think they're, I think they're more because pe you know, educators are looking for a place.
We've got a difficult job and they're looking for a place to belong.
Oh, belonging.
So, and so, you know, it's about tech or it's about you know, inquiry learning or it's about what, whatever it is.
And so that's what I think.
It's gotta make the job of the school board members so hard because those issues are complicated in themselves for professional educators thinking about it all the time.
But they get moved into you know, so, so we've got you know, a political, I mean, we, I mean, it, it becomes political.
Mixed with what's good for the students.
You know, how are we gonna educate these things?
Well, this is where it starts to be revealed that a lot of people think that like the power of the school board is setting policy.
And we hear that a lot.
And I used to hold that as a belief as well.
Now I consider that to be mildly naive.
Is that what the board puts on paper?
Does matter.
And policy is just essentially the written form of the community's vision and values.
And so what the board adopts this policy does matter.
I'm not suggesting it doesn't, I'm just saying it's not the most powerful way that the board impacts the institution because if what the board says doesn't match what the board does, guess which one staff is gonna follow?
Yeah.
And so this is the challenge.
If what the board does, it's behavior and when we think of culture, we think of it as a set of behaviors of all the people in the system, what the board does.
Is going to be more powerful than what the board says in the minds of staff.
And so if there is a variation between, if there is, you know, any wiggle room between what the board is saying and what the board is doing, then people are gonna follow what the board is saying.
You know what the board is doing rather than what they wrote down in policy.
People will forget about the policy and they'll follow the behavior of the board.
They'll follow what the board is actually doing.
And you've probably noticed this with your own kids.
It's like, Hey, I said do this, but then I went and behave this way.
And then lo and behold, guess which one of those your child follows?
And so what you say is only powerful if it matches what you're doing and when the two of those match, like this is heady stuff, but when there is a gap between them, when there's a gap between board behavior and board policy, people are gonna follow board behavior.
Not board policy.
And so what it means is the board behavior is a powerful lever that most boards miss out on.
You know, so for example, you know, take what you're describing.
There are all these other shiny things of the day that people can get enamored with.
Well, with the board.
Spends, its ti says, and policy, you know, these, this is, you know, student learning is the most important thing, but then spends its time in reality in board meetings, talking about all the shiny things.
Well, then don't be surprised when the staff focuses this time on shiny things as well, because they're being incentivized to do so by the board's behavior.
But have a board that says, here are the most important things that students don't wanna be able to do, and let's write those down as goals.
Okay, that's policy.
And the board matches that.
Saying, with doing every single month monitoring progress toward those goals, every single month, we wanna see evidence of our is little AJ's ability to do X, Y, and Z growing or not?
Is Little Jean's ability to do X, y, z, growing or not?
When the board says that student learning is important, and then what it does demonstrates that student learning is important, you actually begin to create a cultural phenomenon in that school system where people are no longer incentivized to chase the latest.
Silver bullet, which is the behavior that most boards tend to inspire, but instead they're incentivized to chase whatever is actually gonna move the needle for little AJ and Little Gene.
Because the only thing the board's gonna look at is not the silver bullet, not the shiny thing.
The board's gonna forsake that entirely and dial in on show me evidence.
Are these children growing or not?
Show me evidence that they're learning or not and where they're growing.
Well, what worked and how do we do more where they didn't grow well, okay, great.
What didn't work?
And how do we pivot?
When the board gets that dialed in its actions and its words match, that's when boards are most powerful.
It's just another thing in education that is simple, but not easy.
No doubt.
I mean, I mean, you're, you haven't changed, you know, in, in the 45 minutes that we've spoken.
I mean, it is clear what they need to do.
And then the devil's in the details.
And what are you gonna do?
What are you not gonna do?
Yeah.
So, so very interesting.
Aj.
I could, Matt, I could talk to you all day.
Do you have any questions for me, aj?
I am curious.
So now that I'm articulating this idea of boards represent the vision and values of the community and that when boards are really powerful, they're at their, the epie of the power when their words and deeds match.
I'm wondering if you've experienced this now that you're getting a sense that might be kind of where the magic is.
Have you seen a board that said this thing is important and that said student learning is important and in their actions made it clear that's the thing they were gonna be focused on in such a way that made it clear that's gotta be everybody else's focus as well.
Have you seen an example of that?
No.
And I think the reason then, I think the reason is and I spent a lot of time in small towns working in small district, et cetera.
I think we never got past what we brought up earlier of the individual board members bringing their particular expertise.
Yeah, I mean, I remember at one time it was a school board member, a school board was just absolutely in, in public, just demeaned whatever the adjectives you wanna use.
Yeah.
And it was because they didn't purchase tires from a local vendor.
You know?
Yeah I agree.
And so, and that is, if you're in, if you're in a smaller community, you know you're gonna go get a cup of coffee and you're gonna, you're gonna get an earful, you're gonna get an earful.
And everybody's gonna wonder, you know, this is for our community.
Who cares if you know, say 5%, yada yada.
And so, I think, you know, we need to not only, educate the board members, but the populace needs to know, Hey this is this is the purpose of the board.
And then the other thing that is you know, that I see that is really a hard hard to get to I guess was when you're talking about, you know, his little AJ learning.
Okay.
There's a lot of, again, there's a level of knowledge I think that board members have to be able to look at data, to be able to look at, you know, what we're doing you know, to make those judgements.
Because, you know, the other thing that happens in board meeting meetings is everybody comes up.
But, you know, let me show you our scholars and you know, our, you know, the fact that our scholars are, you know, at 20, 20% proficient, doesn't matter.
Look at 'em, shine.
And so there, there are these things that they need to get educated on without and having an opinion and having a firm opinion about, no, this is not working without, not looking like you hate kids.
Yeah.
Well, and the, and.
It really is the obligation of the superintendent to present data to the board, one that is explicitly relevant to the board's goals.
That's why the board has to adopt smart goals.
So then it's not What data are we bringing?
Nope.
We've already predefined the data.
The data is the data.
Now we're just wondering, is the data point here on the line graph or is it here?
Is it here?
Where on the line graph is it?
It's really the super, and we coach the superintendent on this.
It's their job to present data in a way that is really be accessible to any parent.
Any community member.
And so board members should not be expected to have a PhD in education leadership in order to discern our children are growing or not.
It really needs to be presented simply enough that any community member could look at this and say, okay, it is clear to me that children are growing, or it's clear to me that children are stagnating or it's clear to me that children are declining.
But there should not have to be special expertise on the part of board members to be able to discern that is on the part of the superintendent and their team.
To present that in a way that is understandable and discernible.
And if they don't, they have failed.
And perhaps they just simply lack the expertise they portray themselves to have.
A true expert can present information in a way that a layperson can understand the key elements of it without having to stop being a layperson.
If someone can't do that, it's just that they're not truly an expert in the area that they've said that they've claimed to be an expert in.
But this is one of the hallmarks of expertise is they can make it clear to layman without the person having to cease being a layman.
And so that is on the superintendent, not on the board to I'm not opposed to the.
Gaining the insights that you're describing, I think that's valuable as well.
But it shouldn't be a requirement.
You know, the requirement of digesting that and making it discernible falls to the superintendent as the board's selected education expert.
Great distinction.
Aj.
Aj, where could people find out more about you if they wanted to learn more about your work?
My website you can look me up@effectiveschoolboards.com and there's links to pretty much everything we've talked about here.
You know, there's free resources on the website, you know, we just want people to have access to it, and if there's something that'll help you help kids you don't even have to email me and ask, can we use this?
The answer is yes.
We just want the word to be out there, and so we try to make all the resources freely available to folks who have a heart for making a difference for our students.
Hey Jay, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today.
No, I appreciate you having me.
I look forward to coming back sometime to continue.
Absolutely.
Gene Tavernetti: If you're enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend.
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