Monitoring Essentials

Reinventing Your Board, Revised Edition

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1. Monitoring must always be based on a reasonable interpretation of the board’s polices about Ends and Executive Limitations. The board does not have to be concerned about the measurability of its policies, since the Superintendent’s interpretations provide the criteria for later measurements. In other words, the interpretations themselves must be measurable.
   
   
   
2. The data presented are only those that address the interpretations of the board’s polices- not a compendium of other data the Superintendent would like the board to know. This is very important in keeping the report lean, so that board members never get lost in a flurry of information that does not constitute monitoring. Whatever the Superintendent would like the board to know (or whatever incidental information the board has asked to see) must be kept completely separate from the monitoring mechanism.
   
   
   
3. Data means data. The monitoring report presents data that address the criteria, not just a statement by the Superintendent that the criteria have been met.
   
   
   
4. Because the monitoring report is always based on the words of the board policy, we encourage the repetition of those words right in the report just to increase the ease for board members. Thus the board’s words and the Superintendent’s interpretation and the data are presented side by side.
   
   
   
5. It is important for board peace of mind that the Superintendent attests by signing that the data submitted throughout the report are true. This is also useful to focus the Superintendent’s attention on the gravity of the reports.
   
   
   
6. The Superintendent should not submit under the guise of monitoring a “report” that does not relate precisely to a board policy. Balance sheets and income statements are examples of reports that are not based on policy.