School
Board Reorganization
By: Winton
Goodrich, VSBA Associate Director
First, make sure all new board
members are duly sworn in. The town/city
clerk usually performs this function. By
law, new board members must take the oath of office and the superintendent
notifies the Commissioner of Education within 10 days following the election.
During board reorganization,
it is critical to establish an effective system for how the board will operate
during the ensuing year. Take particular
care when selecting your board chair.
Electing an effective chair is critical.
Important attributes include electing a board chair who is:
t impartial;
t comfortable
speaking in public;
t willing
and able to hold board members, administrators, and the public accountable.
Tenure on the board should be
considered but should not be the primary influence when voting for the board
chair. School boards CAN NOT have
co-chairs.
Many boards employ a staff
person to take board minutes. Sometimes
this person is the superintendent’s administrative assistant. Other boards hire a paid clerk. Regardless of who takes minutes, they must be
made available, in draft version, to members of the public within 5 days
following each meeting.
Board meetings, and meetings
of any sub-committee of the board, must be publicly warned and minutes taken as
well.
Once the usual and customary
appointments of chair, vice chair, and clerk have been completed, many boards
also identify committee responsibilities. This is the time when the board
decides how meetings will be conducted throughout the year. All boards are required by law to operate
under Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary Procedure. However, boards with fewer
than 12 members may conduct board business using a more informal system call
Robert’s Rules for Small Boards.
Decisions, made by boards
using traditional Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary Procedure, must be preceded
by a motion, a second, ensuing deliberation, and, finally, a vote. This process can be slow and somewhat
cumbersome. However, when this process
is followed everyone knows where each board member stands on an issue. The board chair should discourage abstentions
for issues that are difficult. The only
time abstentions are appropriate is when a perceived conflict of interest can
be substantiated and agreed upon by the board.
In potentially volatile decisions, the board member, involved in a
perceived conflict of interest, should absent themselves from both deliberation
and voting on the issue.
Robert’s Rules for Small
Boards provides a more informal operating style. The board chair facilitates deliberation
until it appears consensus has been reached.
There may or may not be a formal motion made. A second on the motion is not required. The board chair often votes along with fellow
board members. However, this style of
board operation can be confusing. There
must be tacit agreement during the board reorganization that silence during
consensus decision making means support.
The clerk must carefully record the action taken by the board. This operating style often encourages members
of the public to begin deliberating with the board, blurring lines of
authority, and may cause meetings to get out of control.
Other board reorganization
work includes identifying the newspaper(s) that meeting agendas will be sent
to, agreeing on and signing the board code of conduct, scheduling an annual
board work session, where board goals and an annual board work plan will be
developed, and identifying and dividing up responsibility for attendance at
board development activities throughout the year.
In Vermont, there are 46
supervisory unions, 12 supervisory districts, 3 independent technical center
boards, and 2 interstate districts. Each
town in a supervisory union elects its own local board members. The local board runs a school or is
responsible for tuitioning students to other schools,
within or outside Vermont. Three members
from each town, which operates a school, serve on the supervisory union
board. Tuitioning
towns are only allowed one representative on the supervisory union board.
Each local school board, at
the annual reorganization meeting, appoints board members who will serve on the
supervisory union board. These
supervisory union representatives are the only board members eligible to vote
at supervisory union board meetings.
Congratulations on your
current or past success in being elected to serve on your school board(s). You represent one of 1460 school board
members statewide that comprise 284 school boards.
Good luck and good skill to
your board as you begin the very important work of providing oversight and
direction for education in your community.