Ask Marci Cornell-Feist your own question about charter school governance.

Dear Mark,

The transition from a founding board to a sustainable governing board is a critical part of any charter school’s evolution and getting it right it essential for the school’s ultimate success.

Technically, immediately upon being chartered, your founding board is the governing board, after all it is the board, not the lead founder, who is awarded the charter, and therefore I would argue that immediately upon being chartered (or as quickly as you can get organized) you formalize the governing board, hold the first official governing board meeting, adopt the bylaws, elect officers and begin functioning like a governing board. 

The sooner your board starts to operate like a full governing board the better. It is much easier to practice running effective meetings and learn how to work together as a board before the school is up and running and there are lots of other things vying for your attention. Now is the time to get governance right.

You mentioned that the current founding board is serving to provide the expertise needed to get the school open—such as finance, legal, facility, etc.—that’s terrific, and I would imagine you will need the governing board to continue to provide these skills for years to come. It’s typical that in the pre-opening phase, before you have a full complement staff in place, the board may be pitching in and doing more “management” related tasks in each of these areas to help you through this transition period.  Once you hire staff, the board can then shift their attention to higher level governance issues. A general rule of thumb is that the governing board should bring skills that the staff of the school probably will never have.

As far as term limits go I recommend each trustees serving two three-year terms with a mandatory year off after those six years before serving again.  The first group of trustees should serve staggered terms so that they all don’t rotate off at the same time. The easiest way to do this is to just draw names and have 1/3 of the trustees initially serve a one year term, 1/3 two years, and 1/3 three year terms. When these initial terms are up they can all then serve a three year term.

Often the initial composition of the trustees may have been right for the charter application phase, but will need to be recalibrated for the governing phase.  The easiest way to do this is the think through the skill sets, diversity, etc. you ideally want on the governing board. Examine your current founding board and discuss where the gaps are and the best way to go about filling them. Also, many founding boards have generously given of their time for the founding phase, but may not want to serve moving forward. You should be sure to have a frank discussion with each individual about whether or not they are a good fit moving forward and whether they truly have the time to commit to serving on the governing board


Marci Cornell-Feist
Meetinghouse Solutions

Dear Board Chair,

Just showing up to meetings won’t cut it!

On average, to have a highly effective charter school board, each board member (not just a few “worker bees” should be expected to contribute 6-8 hours a month. This breaks down to:
•    Attending a monthly board meeting (2 hours)
•    Committee work in between meetings (2 hours)
•    Reading documents and preparing for board meetings (1-2 hours)
•    Ambassador/Fundraising tasks—bringing people to the school, participating in school events, helping recruit new board members, etc. (1-2 hours)

Monthly board meetings are essential.
At least during the first five years of operating your charter school, it is essential to meet at least ten times a year. The large number of strategic issues to be discussed during this period makes monthly meetings necessary. Many schools have tried meeting every other month so that committees can meeting on alternate months—my experience has been that most boards loose momentum with this approach.

Find candidates with the time to serve.
Determine the time expectation you will need, and make it clear to potential board candidates. Too often, those recruiting new trustees feel desperate and aren’t upfront with candidates about the time commitment, hoping once they join the board they will fall in love with the school and miraculously make the time to serve. Hold out for candidates that can really give you the time you need. If someone is too busy to serve, suggest that they serve as a non-board member on a committee.

Time commitment is an essential ingredient to effective charter school boards. Clarify what this means on your board, communicate your expectations and hold one another accountable.

Marci Cornell-Feist
Meetinghouse Solutions

Dear Greg,

Most board problems stem from a lack of the full board, not just few motivated board members, need to take strong leadership, in order to guide their school to delivering the excellence their students deserve. I’d say the top three mistakes I see board members making are:

1.  Not holding one another accountable
Charter schools were established to be exceptionally accountable public schools, yet very often board members do not hold themselves to the same high standards they are holding their students to. Many charter school boards have a hard time having a quorum, many charter school board members agree to assignments in between board meetings but don’t follow-through on their tasks, and many charter school board members show up to meetings not having read the board packet. Ask yourself what happens to a student at your school who doesn’t show up for class, doesn’t do their homework, or shows up without their textbook.

Who’s responsible for ensuring accountability? The Board Chair is primarily responsible for building a board culture of accountability and each individual board member should support the Chair in demanding accountability from each trustee. If the Board Chair is unwilling or unable to do this, you as a board member should show some leadership and make this happen.

Are there simple ways to shift our culture to one of greater accountability?
•    Reconfirm the board commitment. Create a job description for the board and clarify the time commitment you are expecting from each board member. Hold everyone to the same standard.  Don’t have a few “worker bees” who do all the work and others that are left off the hook.
•    Remove unproductive board members. If people can’t follow-through the Board Chair or chair of the governance committee should meet with them and counsel them to resign from the board.
•    Set clear goals. Ask committees to create action plans with specific timelines, and have these approved by the full board. Refer to the goals and ask committees to report on progress at every board meeting.

2. Allowing one or two board members to take full responsibility for the financial health of the school
The number one reason that charter schools have been closed across the country is financial mismanagement.  Most charter school boards have one or two savvy financial people on the board and the rest of the board is only too happy to abdicate all financial oversight to these knowledgeable individuals. The full board must understand and take ownership of the short and long-term financial health of the school. To accomplish this is a two way street. A board needs a strong finance committee that delves deeply into the numbers, and the finance committee needs to take responsibility for educating the full board about the financials so that they can read the monthly financials and understand the short and long-term issues detailed in the budget. Often the finance committee will need to develop a coversheet or memo that is included with the monthly spread sheets explaining key issues to the rest of the board in words rather than numbers.

3.  A lack of clarity and urgency regarding academic excellence
Every board should have a frank dialogue with the head of their school about academic excellence. Together they should define academic excellence, make sure that each board member knows the key charter promises that have been made to your authorizer and have a clear and consistent way to measure this annually. Academic data should be provided to the board in context, meaning that the board should not just receive annual testing data from your head of school, but you should receive data outlining how did your students do compared to other charters, other district schools, the suburban schools, etc.

If a charter school board pools its efforts, governs as an effective organizational leadership team, and requires each board member to understand and take accoutablilty for the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, then you will be well on your way to steering your charter school towards excellence.

 
“At our charter school board meetings the most common procedural issues revolve around the Open Meetings Act. Some members think it is intended as a guide and others think it is absolute. Please provide some advice about the Open Meetings Act and how to comply with it.”
Linda Wiens, Board Chair
Prairie Crossing Charter School

Most charter school boards are a bit fuzzy on the interpretation of the Open Meetings Act. The most important thing is to understand the intent of the law but not to be paralyzed from doing good work because of it.  Remember that your board’s composition is constantly changing and people need periodic training and orientation around the Open Meetings Act. I’m not a lawyer, so specific technical questions are better addressed to your school’s legal counsel, but to get you going in the right direction, here are some preliminary thoughts.

Because charter schools are public schools and the board of the school is a governmental body, it must comply with the state’s Open Meetings Act. The Illinois Attorney General’s web site describes the intent of the Open Meetings Act in the following way:

“It is the public policy of this State that public bodies exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business and that the people have a right to be informed as to the conduct of their business. (5 ILCS 120/1)  The intent of the Illinois Open Meetings Act is to ensure that public business is conducted in public view by prohibiting secret deliberations and actions on matters that should be discussed in a public forum.”

The actual law and a guide to the open meetings act can be found at the following links:

http://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/government/open_meetings.html

http://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/government/openmeet.pdf

Steps to take to make sure your charter school board is complying with the Open Meetings Act:

1.    Make sure every board member and your school leader has a copy of the Open Meetings Act.

2.    Include a discussion of compliance with the Open Meetings Act as part of your new board member orientation.

3.    Annually provide the full board with a refresher on the Open Meetings Act and ask the school’s legal counsel for guidance with specific questions.

4.    Annually ask the school’s legal counsel to review your procedures for complying with the Open Meetings Act which should include reviewing the board minutes, procedures for posting your meetings and meeting protocols.

Again, remember the spirit of the law is that the public sees the board doing its work in public, but don’t let that stop you from having open, honest and difficult conversations. Let the public hear the tough questions you are asking and see the hard choices you are making as a charter school board. The more we all understand about what it takes to deliver exceptional public education the better off we will be, and observing a public charter school board in action is an excellent way to educate interested members of the public.

Marci Cornell-Feist
Meetinghouse Solutions