“Every single school district is going to face complex situations that involve change,” says Sun Prairie Area School District Superintendent Brad Saron. It’s inevitable.
Saron relies on his board’s governance model to streamline the onboarding process so new members can join the board and operate on a united front. Here’s how you can, too.
To ensure your board can navigate your school system through change, members should adhere to best leadership practices that are similar to those followed by superintendents, says Saron who is in his 10th year at the Wisconsin district.
Change in your school board is expected, adds Steve Schroeder, the district’s senior member of 13 years. Four of the board’s seven members have yet to serve one three-year term. It’s easy to assume that school boards with similar dynamics might experience clashes of opinions and goals. Sun Prairie is an exception.
Embracing a united front
Sun Prairie has several structures in place to ensure its school board operates in accord. It utilizes a governance model that is a “cousin of policy governance,” Schroeder explains. In essence, the members set policies while providing the superintendent with the authority and autonomy to make day-to-day decisions to meet the objectives of the board.
“Board members are nothing more than trustees,” says Schroder. “They’re just the voice for their communities.”
Its governance model follows 10 specific principles:
- The board is accountable to the owners, and serves as their trustee.
- The board knows what its job is, and is responsible for its own performance.
- The board plans its own work, and faithfully concentrates on its governance role.
- The board is active, but not intrusive.
- Board members recognize the value of acting as a unit, even when unanimity is elusive.
- The board effectively monitors both the organization’s and its own performance.
- The board controls the organization through policy, not through “resolutions” or approving administrative recommendations.
- The board owns the vision for organizational performance.
- He or she who makes the decision is accountable for the result.
- The board considers the performance of the organization and the performance of the superintendent to be identical.
“Having that framework has helped us tremendously,” says Schroeder. “I was on the board when we didn’t have the framework, and it was like the Wild West.”
More from DA: School staffing: Are we in better shape heading into 2025?
At the time, the board was composed of seven members who wanted to be the superintendent, and one superintendent who just wanted to do his job, he notes.
“We didn’t know any better,” Schroeder explains. “You get elected to a school board and nobody handed me a manual saying, ‘This is what a school board member does.’”
While the board has experienced change in membership over the years, Schroeder believes it has helped members recognize “the rules of the game” and establish a framework that is comprehensive and representative of the district’s goals.
How to manage differences within your board
Across K12, disputes that occur during school board meetings often make headlines. Saron and Schroeder agree that boards are quick to point the finger at each other or the problem, rather than taking accountability and asking, “What can we do better?”
As part of the onboarding process, each Sun Prairie board member learns the finer details of the board’s mission and how they fit into the governance team. A board officer is responsible for ensuring the board sticks to its purpose by following best leadership practices. Here’s an excerpt from its purpose statement.
The Sun Prairie Area School District Board of Education is the governing board of the Sun Prairie Area School District. The board leads, directs, and supervises the affairs of the district through policy development and accountability to expectations. The board serves and is accountable to the community it represents.
“Boards are very good at pointing the finger outward to the system and pointing out everything that’s wrong,” says Schroeder. “What they’re not nearly as good at is pointing the finger inward.”
Schroeder and Saron advocate for taking accountability as an “entity,” and recognizing that the board is responsible for creating district policy. Like principle nine of Sun Prairie’s governance framework states, “He who makes the decision is accountable for the result.”
“I subscribe to the model that you need to clean your own house before cleaning somebody else’s,” Schroeder adds. “What do we need to do to model the behavior that we want others in the system to exemplify?”
Stay tuned for part two of this story where Saron and Schroeder describe the human relationship piece of board governance and how to serve students with civility.
