“What is the purpose of a school board, anyway? What ought a board member’s job look like, and what traits make an effective board member?” Question like these abound in the spring months; especially as some have noticed some tensions in different local boards. The crux of comprehending it all is the foundational understanding that government is best run and most easily influenced – as well as most closely watched and held accountable — at the level nearest you. Whom do you casually see around town more often, your county and city officials, your state legislators, or your federal congressmen and Senators? When was the last time you visited with US Senator Schmitt while your kids played ball together? The geography of representing the entire state simply makes it much harder to connect with him. But I bet you’ve seen your city alderman at a social event, or your mayor at church in the past few months. You might’ve even been at a meeting where your county commissioner or school board member was also there and you hung out and visited afterward.
The local school board, composed of members of your neighborhood and your kids’ friends’ parents, is the community’s mechanism for running the school district. It ostensibly does that by setting the priorities of the District, approving budgets to accomplish those priorities, and supervising the Superintendent, who is hired to carry out those priorities. The Board technically approves hiring and releasing employees and is tasked with reviewing administrative performance. But how? Does it merely trust the experts it has hired who are trained in how to administer all the many operations of the District? Does the Board simply ask them if they are doing a good job, providing them a blank report card to give themselves a grade? If that is the way it is supposed to work, then why is the Board itself even necessary? If it never fails to approve any of the ideas brought to it, if Board members never suggest or request any tweaks to improve a project — or even approach said project differently – then of what use is gaining “Board approval” except to delay what actually needs to be done by waiting to have a meeting where approval is formally granted? Why even have that second layer of “approval” if it is a mere formality?
The board member’s job, as an elected representative of the community, is to interface with their constituents, to solicit the input of those members of their neighborhoods and their kids’ friends’ parents, and to take school issues to the community to get feedback about how to best handle those issues. Sure, board members might also be well-versed in effective business practices or smart financial decision-making themselves, but mostly they need to be concerned about protecting and promoting the philosophies and priorities of their specific community. Because they live right in the community, because of their connections and ties to people around them, they are the best equipped to know what those philosophies and priorities actually entail. Better equipped than an unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat in the state capital. Better equipped than some distant, national department of education. And way better equipped than an employee of a state-wide group seeking a compromise to represent all the values of the districts across the state, from Ozark to Kansas City or St. Louis or even Lawson or Brookfield.
The board member’s behaviors and attitudes need to include the determination to overcome the difficult balance of maintaining friendly relations with the superintendent while still unabashedly providing the necessary oversight the community intends and the administration needs. The board member’s behavior ought to be motivated by the prevalence in his mindset of the idea that the public interest far outweighs any other considerations. His attitude must genuinely value teachers, their awareness, their expertise, and their insight. The desire to work and the diligence to research to discover the best means to the most effective ends for their students ought to be similar to that of the medical professional who genuinely wishes to help patients, without regard for the recognition and accolades that will accompany the position. And, importantly, the effective board member must maintain the same openness and accessibility, the same eagerness to hear from the public, while he is in office as he had while seeking to win the office.