Superintendent as Innovator-in-Chief
Leading out-of-the-box change is your school board’s governing gold standard. It has to do with the highest-priority governing matters, such as updating your district’s values and vision statements, identifying the highest-stakes issues that your district needs to grapple with this year, and fashioning change initiatives to address the issues you’ve selected.
May 2012
Preventing Fraud in Your Schools
A series of unsettling financial findings in Oklahoma’s Skiatook Public Schools toppled the head of the school system and led to several indictments. Unfortunately, such incidents are not rare. Here are eight tips for keeping your school district financially safe and sound.
May 2012
Rural School Basics
It sounds so simple, so traditional, and so old-fashioned. But it also makes perfect sense. Successful schools engage parents and the public to build community support. Schools need to put high-quality teachers in classrooms. They need to review academic data and pay attention to each student’s individual needs.
May 2012
Honoring School Board Best Practices
It takes a village to raise a child. This phrase was taken to heart by the grand-prize-winning Magna Award districts this year. One district provided a warm and stable home environment for students in great need. The other two districts found innovative ways to engage underrepresented parents into their schools.
May 2012
School Leaders' Guide to Grant Writing
All effective grant-writing programs have certain characteristics: good communications, coordination of activities, common mission statement and goals, and a feeling of shared ownership. Your list of experts should include members of the community who are willing to serve on your grant-writing team. The only failure in grant writing is not trying.
April 2012
Preparing for E-Rate
It is important to remember that E-rate is a journey, not a race. So instead of letting E-rate fall by the wayside until the next big deadline, we offer a few simple suggestions for completing the work for this funding year, as well as for preparing for the next funding year and beyond.
April 2012
Five Ways for Schools to Thrive in Tight Times
Most districts can’t keep cutting back and provide a 21st century top-quality education. Districts need to reimagine how to educate their students at a permanently lower per-pupil spending level. School districts can alter how they serve students in a world of declining resources, and serve them better by embracing five strategies.
April 2012
The Costs of Educating Immigrants
How much does it cost to educate immigrant students, both legal and undocumented? And what are the short- and long-term benefits of those efforts? These questions are both tremendously complex and politically charged. There is no agreed-upon estimate of the costs – let alone the benefits – of educating the children of immigrants.
April 2012
Employee Benefits Savings
Districts must continue to find ways to save money and keep budget cuts as far away from the classroom as possible. One area of money-saving potential is employee benefits. School districts and school boards still can realize some savings while they continue to offer health care benefits to their employees.
April 2012
School Boards on the Hill
Each winter, about 750 school board members attend NSBA’s Federal Relations Network Conference (FRN). Participants spend two days in sessions learning about current federal legislative issues and trends, then head to Capitol Hill for meetings with their congressional representatives and staff. Participants from Ohio, Georgia, Montana and Texas give you their impressions.
April 2012
Making It Work Between Board and Superintendent
The school board-superintendent working relationship is notoriously fragile, and is very likely to erode if not meticulously managed. One of the most powerful tools you can use to build and maintain a close, positive, and productive board-superintendent partnership is a well-designed and carefully executed process for board evaluation of superintendent performance.
March 2012
Politics and School Board Races
More than $2 million was spent in 2011 on just three elections. That kind of spending doesn’t just happen. In a political environment in which money, partisanship, ideology, and fiery rhetoric play increasingly prominent roles at the state and national levels, who can say what the future holds for local elections?
March 2012
Education Vital Signs: School Governance
Education Vital Signs collection of reports on School Governance.
Spurring Creative Thinking in Your District
If your district gets the board involved late in an out-of-the-box change planning process, when hands-on input isn’t feasible, then you can’t reasonably expect the board to feel firmly committed to the change initiatives in your district’s portfolio. Commitment depends more on feelings of ownership than on any other factor.
January 2012
Managing the Generations
Many districts have three or even four generations working for it. Each generation has unique talents and contributions. Understanding generational differences can help school board members and superintendents lead more effectively. They can make the differences work to the advantage of the district and to improve student achievement.
January 2012