[00:01] SPEAKER_01:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.
[00:06] Announcer:
Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.
[00:15] SPEAKER_02:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Dr. Brad Balch. Brad Balch, Ph.D., is a professor and dean emeritus at Indiana State University, a former superintendent, principal, assistant principal, teacher, and school board member, as well as a board member of higher education governance bodies, including the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. He's the author of several books, including Building Great School Board Superintendent Teams, A Systematic Approach to Balancing Roles and Responsibilities.
[00:48] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:50] SPEAKER_02:
Dr. Balch, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Well, thank you. Well, obviously, the relationship that a superintendent has with a school board is very important for lots of reasons. But I wonder what it was that you saw happening in the field that prompted you to write this book with Michael Adamson.
[01:06] SPEAKER_00:
Well, we've certainly seen a lot of changes. I would consider it a transformation over the last century with regards to that most basic governmental unit. and the board, and the superintendent as a governing team. In my work as of late with school boards, and I know Dr. Adamson had witnessed the same, which I think was an impetus for this book, is that whether boards were working effectively or ineffectively, there was always a source of tension among them. And it was great interest to us to unearth that source of tension and make it predictable in some ways.
[01:45]
And what we've discovered is that school boards and superintendents have reached a point in which they can no longer operate effectively if they attempt to make each of their roles and responsibilities discrete. So those boards that seem to work most effectively allow for overlapping roles and responsibilities. It doesn't mean that there's times in which A board might decide what priorities might be, and the superintendent decides how those priorities are operationalized. But by and large, there is an allowance for role and responsibility overlap. But what we know is that that is a source of tension. And so those boards and superintendents that do it most effectively are are able to work in that environment of tension.
[02:34]
It is our hope that the chapters in the book create a bounded system that you wouldn't just pick or choose one or two chapters, but rather look at that book and its collective chapters and it helps create the cornerstones for role and responsibility overlap and the source of tension that comes with it.
[02:52] SPEAKER_02:
Well, it's interesting to frame that source of tension as role overlap because I think typically we look for clarity in roles. We like to say, you know, this is your job, this is my job, let's all do our thing and we'll get along. And I remember our superintendent, when I was a principal in Seattle Public Schools, Dr. Maria Goodloe Johnson, who has since passed, and during my tenure as a principal, was actually fired by the school board. She used to say, the school board has one employee, and it's me. And the rest of you work for me, you don't work for the school board.
[03:22]
I work for the school board, and that's kind of how it goes. And obviously in a major city, it gets complicated. It gets political. School board members are often elected officials. And I know that varies from place to place. But that relationship absolutely is critical.
[03:35]
And I know communication is a big part of that. Clarity is a big part of that. But it's also, I love the frame that you've put on it in the book of teamwork. It really is a team job to lead and govern a school district.
[03:49] SPEAKER_00:
Absolutely.
[03:49] SPEAKER_02:
Absolutely. One thing that I think is often surprising to people when they kind of get into the world of dealing with school boards is that as educators, we've had a lot of training, a lot of education, years and years of graduate school, and often school board members are brand new to this. They might bring other experience, other expertise. Talk to us a little bit about induction and training and kind of onboarding for school board members.
[04:15] SPEAKER_00:
Great question. Some years ago, Thomas Glass, on behalf of the National School Boards Association, conducted some very useful research across a host of topics relative to superintendents and school boards. And one of the topics he pursued was that of induction. And he found that as a minimum, there should be a two-year period of induction afforded any new board member because it clearly takes that long to to make the job of governance a bit predictable, to be able to wrap your arms around all in which you're faced with as an elected or an appointed official. We address the importance of induction in the book, and that varies from state to state. In some states, there's a very formalized and centralized induction process to the extent that mentors from outside the district are assigned.
[05:06]
In other states, there is no formal induction process at all, and so it's left largely to districts to decide whether that's a priority or not. But it is our hope, and we really try to underscore that in the book, that there's a two-year period of time in which a new board member increasingly accepts roles and responsibility and finds his or her place at that governing table. There's really no one-size-fits-all approach to a board member's contribution to the overall team. Rather, everyone, including the superintendent, brings varying gifts and talents to the table. And it's why each of our chapters have a professional development activity. What we're really trying to do with those activities is build a degree of vulnerability into the team so that they're open to divergent views.
[05:55]
They're open to differing prospectings, differing leadership styles. that whole essence of difference. And it takes time to get to know each other that well. It's a degree of professional intimacy and any new board member is going to need a year or two to find themselves contributing in a comfortable way and knowing truly what they bring to the governance equation.
[06:17] SPEAKER_02:
Well, and I appreciate that frame of governance as well, because I think it's sometimes the case that people run for school board because they have an issue that they care about, that they're passionate about. Like maybe there's been a move to close schools and they're opposed to that. Or maybe there has been some other issue in the community that they have a standpoint on and want to advocate for that standpoint. But then when they get the job, when they are elected to the school board or appointed to the school board, they find that there's a lot of just work to do as a board member governing a school district.
[06:50] SPEAKER_00:
Absolutely. And, you know, social demographers would suggest that increasingly we're developing strong opinions, strongly held about particular topics and far less likely to let go of a particular position, even in the face of evidence that would suggest doing so otherwise. And that's one of the reasons induction is so important. If I'm a newly elected or appointed official and I ran with a slate of candidates or even on my own about around a particular issue or two, helping me understand that once I've sworn that oath to serve my community and provide a free and appropriate education to the students in our district, that's a big, big obligation. In fact, it begins to get into a moral imperative. And that's where induction can help us see a much larger picture than any one single agenda item.
[07:41] SPEAKER_02:
Well, I know in a lot of districts, the school board is kind of distant. If you're in a major city, I personally as a principal never spoke with anyone on the school board. I don't know if I was supposed to, but it was a big district and school board members were elected officials and I didn't really see that as my place. But I know in a lot of places, if someone is considering becoming a superintendent or someone has been recently hired as a superintendent or maybe is experiencing the onboarding of new school board members right now, there are probably a lot of desires to strengthen that relationship, to improve communication and to just build that relationship so that more and better work gets done on behalf of kids. And I wonder what advice you have for superintendents in particular working with school boards to just strengthen those ties, strengthen that communication.
[08:32]
What are some of your key takeaways from the book?
[08:34] SPEAKER_00:
You know, that's a very complex question that you've asked. Your question really has implications for looking within the district, but looking outside the district as well. There's a particular chapter in the book that deals directly with decision-making. And when we think about communication, certainly for me, sound decision making comes to mind. There should be a high degree of predictability built into the superintendent board decision making process, whether it's day-to-day mundane activities or something that's clearly complex with potentially competing outcomes. And so sound decision making goes a long way to inform communication from the team outward, whether it's internal stakeholders or external stakeholders.
[09:24]
But part of that communication process is also listening as well. And your earlier point about not knowing the board well, I believe for boards as a missed opportunity, I will often suggest to boards when working with them, that they have a standing item called Spotlight on Excellence and that they invite their school stakeholders in to share the good work of teaching and learning on a regular basis. It's an outstanding way for our key administrators at the building level to get in front of that governing board team and get to know them better, to bring with them students, staff, or faculty, or even parents and other stakeholders who can help tell the good story of teaching and learning that's occurring in the schools. But a big emphasis of this book as well was our community's feeling of a loss of control.
[10:14]
And we posit that school boards have an opportunity to fix that. You know, when you go back to the 1940s, for example, a board member was representing about 200 constituents on national average. And today they represent over 3,000 constituents. In a similar way, a principal represented about 200 students on average, and today it's a little over 3,700 students on average. And when you think about this notion of loss of control, just in the sheer number of voices that one individual is trying to represent contributes greatly to that. If you go all the way back to the 20s, about 83% of funding for our local public schools came from the local level.
[10:59]
The most recent data I looked at would have been around 2013, and it suggested only 45% of local funds support local schools. What happens is it's an aviation term that I call the death spiral. And it's this spiral that our communities and especially our governing boards can get into. where there's a dissatisfaction among our external stakeholders that our voice is not valued, that our participation necessarily doesn't matter any longer. And the more that we feel that way, the more displeasure or distrust we have towards that school superintendent or school board team. That in turn leads to greater dissatisfaction and the perception of loss of control, which contributes to more distrust.
[11:43]
And that spiral simply continues. Boards, by virtue of of your original question around communication can do so much to challenge that notion of a loss of local control. And they need to answer more of the grand tour question about how can our patrons participate and truly feel that they're making a difference in day-to-day teaching and learning in the schools that that governing board serves. And there's a host of ways to invite that input. But I guess I belabored the point a bit to come back to the original question. and make the case that communication is not just a one-way communique.
[12:23]
It's not just simply pushing out information, but rather a two-way process in which we're inviting dialogue, not just talking. I was working with a school district not long ago, and the superintendent and school board were quite proud of the fact that they were using social media to push out the work of the team. So at the end of an evening after they'd had a public session, Much work was done to pull together a draft narrative about what had happened, and they'd push it out, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, potentially posting at a website, but they pushed this out. And then what happened? They all went home. Well, what we're finding and what the research is suggesting is that for savvy media users, that is the beginning of a conversation.
[13:07]
When that messaging is pushed out, They want to engage in dialogue now and react to that. But if everybody's gone home at the end of the day, there is no further conversation. And so two way communication has failed in this case when actually they had quite an opportunity to participate very differently. So social media is no doubt an area that our teams are going to have to consider, but they're going to have to consider wisely. how to use that resource because considering it a one-way venue simply isn't going to be enough to engage our communities in day-to-day teaching and learning operations.
[13:42] SPEAKER_02:
That two-way street of social media communication, absolutely. And I love what you said earlier on in your response about the need to really be proactive in communicating good news. And I think especially with school boards, with superintendents, people gravitate towards the negative issues. People bring to the school board their complaints, their gripes, anything they're upset about, and it really does take intentionality on the part of leaders to to set a positive agenda and say, here are all the great things happening in our school district. Here are all the things that we're proud of. Because if they're not emergencies, often they're not news.
[14:20]
If they're not crises, often they're not news. Unless we go out of our way to tell that story and to turn them into those good news stories that we want to get out into the community. So I really appreciate your points there.
[14:31] SPEAKER_00:
Justin, I couldn't agree with you more. And I Absolutely love your passion for that topic. If we don't share the good word, if we don't put a face on our business, our critics will. And we've got to own the narrative at the end of the day. A bit of that gets into increased advocacy skills on our own behalf. But nonetheless, telling our story is so very important.
[14:54] SPEAKER_02:
As you were talking about social media, I was also thinking about the law around such things, the law around communication regarding levies and bond issues and things like that. And often the school board and the superintendent have slightly different rules that they play by in terms of what they're able to say and do and promote in the community. And I wonder, with your experience in governance at different levels, what are some of the best ways that superintendents and school board members can become informed about the many, many, many laws that affect their work, including their work together in leadership and governance? What are some of the best PD resources or sources of expertise that they can tap into?
[15:37] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah. Well, I think I'd like to suggest chapter two of our book, a wonderful resource on legal framework. We decided to include a legal lens chapter because much like you've suggested, it is very important to understand that. And sometimes when we see board members or superintendents just throw their hands up and say, what can I do? The state's in control, the federal government's in control, anyone else's control, that's in control. That's not actually true.
[16:07]
Boards and superintendents are afforded much power and authority for day-to-day operations in the schools and districts they serve. But a firm understanding of those legal parameters is simply tantamount to being able to exercise that power and authority. So a few things come to mind. I think legal counsel is so very important. And we make the case in our book around the importance of having good, sound legal counsel. Boards are addressing that quite differently.
[16:39]
We have representation for boards, separate representation for the district, and then we might bring attorneys in for specialty cases such as collective bargaining or debt ratio needs. It just depends on the type of specialty, but it's not uncommon for a larger district to have three different legal counsel venues depending on those needs. However, those individuals are an enormous resource to the board and to the superintendent. And so I would encourage them, whether they're considering a retainer or they're doing so on an hourly basis, to not forget the importance of their own legal counsel as a source of professional development. Our state associations are also a wonderful source of support. How they are configured at the state level looks quite differently.
[17:31]
Some have in-house legal counsel that's on deck for calls five days a week. Others do not. But nonetheless, the associations, whether it's a school business official association, principal, superintendent, school board association, they most all provide a strand of legal service And what's important is there's the foundational law concepts, constitutional law, those things that the business of education is deeply rooted in. But current case law, judge-made law, is so very important to day-to-day operations. And our associations typically do a wonderful job of pushing that information out to us With case law, there is no one-size-fits-all interpretation to that, and that's a wonderful venue for a superintendent and a school board to sit down and make meaning of particular case law.
[18:25]
If we've had an interpretation that canvases two or three states, it's incumbent on that governing team to sit down and decide, well, what's this mean for us in light of our own directives, policies, laws, and guidelines? In light of our own state statutes, how do we interpret this? And it's a great PD opportunity for the team.
[18:45] SPEAKER_02:
Absolutely. Well, and I appreciate your point that it's an ever-changing landscape, you know, with new rulings coming out, often with federal guidance changing and with new cases coming up in the state and federal Supreme Court. So definitely lots to stay on top of. One other topic that I think may be of great interest to our listeners is the challenge presented by board members who perhaps have an axe to grind or who perhaps are a little bit more difficult to work with. So if there is a dysfunctional relationship or a rogue team member on the school board, what are some ways that superintendents can strive to kind of minimize the damage that that causes and maximize the functionality of that relationship?
[19:30] SPEAKER_00:
Well, you've happened on to quite an interesting topic because whether it's overall team dysfunction or that individual rogue member, it can be quite a challenge and extremely disruptive. When we think about the very ethics and codes of conduct, the circumscript abhorred, The essence of trust and speaking in one voice and being open to divergent views and truly caring about one another's voice and value at the table, those all become team imperatives. And when we see dysfunction, when we see rogue members, there's generally an absence of that. What happens is trust begins to erode, morale begins to erode. And eventually, if it persists long enough, it's felt at the building level,
[20:20]
it's felt among the school community. And so one of the toughest first steps is to address the problem and address it head on. And boards have tackled that differently. If we were to have the rogue as a superintendent, there's a contract relationship there that would dictate some appropriate next steps. If that rogue individual among the team is a board member, occasionally a board member and the superintendent have approached that individual directly. and had a conversation.
[20:51]
Sometimes that's been left to just the board president by him or herself. And it varies so much that I could give example after example, but I would say there's an entire genre of rogue members that simply lack a situational awareness that their behavior is being perceived as is. And sometimes simply putting that on the table and dealing with it directly can reorient that member's relationship with the rest of the team. Another option which boards have done, they call it an operations compact, and we deal with how to adopt an operations compact in one of our chapters, but it's where the board can first informally discuss it, say in a more private setting such as executive session, But talk about the roles and responsibilities of individual board members and how they'll posture and how they'll act.
[21:46]
And then it can be discussed publicly and actually codified and affirmed as a compact. And it kind of scripts the way in which board members will act. In a worst-case scenario, a rogue board member is going to persist and simply doesn't care any longer about the actions of the team collectively. When that becomes a consideration, you begin to run out of options, but minimizing that individual's influence is probably your next best step. A minimum of consideration for the comments that an individual might be offering. Sometimes they use a shock and awe kind of orientation or a bully behavior to command everyone's attention.
[22:30]
And you just attempt to disregard that. You can continue to come back to that operations compact and talk constructively about what it was that we all agreed to. But marginalizing that voice is maybe the second best step beyond something formal other than the compact. What we typically see is that when the individual is isolated, oftentimes a single term is sufficient and attrition naturally occurs over time. When it's recognized by our community stakeholders that that voice is no longer valued, we typically see others in the community ready to step up for service now and replace that individual. So in worst case scenarios, I guess we have to let attrition occur.
[23:15]
And I wish I could have a very concise response to a challenging question such as yours, but this gets into some deeply troubling issues. behaviors, and they often aren't fixed quickly or easily.
[23:28] SPEAKER_02:
Absolutely. And just seeing your book and seeing that there are patterns to this work, I think, can be very helpful to a group of people who are probably stepping into this world for the first time. And being on a school board, it's easy to see that as just something that you do, and it's easy to forget that this is something that happens in, what, 14,000 school districts all over the country. every day and there are patterns there are things that work there are things that do not work and just engaging school board members in maybe a book study maybe some professional development to help them think about that larger responsibility that they have to their community that this is not just a venue to grind an axe or air personal grievances or get some attention or whatever the dysfunctional behavior that we're seeing is. But really, this is an opportunity to serve, to serve the public, to serve students, to learn how to be more effective on behalf of students.
[24:25]
And it really is a privilege to serve the public in that way. And I'm grateful that you've created this resource to help people do that more effectively. So again, the book is Building Great School Board Superintendent Teams, A Systematic Approach to Balancing Roles and Responsibilities. Brad, I've just got one final question for you here. Speaking specifically to superintendents, if you could wave a magic wand and get all superintendents to do one particular thing to improve their relationship with their board, what would that be?
[25:00] SPEAKER_00:
You know, if I'm fortunate enough to have a second edition of this book, I think I'm going to focus much more intentionally on some of the preventive measures that boards and superintendents can take to ensure effectiveness overall. So if I had advice for a superintendent, I would say, let's work that team towards systems thinkers. Let's do it with a clear vision and mission plan. and a set of core values and beliefs that matter and we hold ourselves accountable to. Let's be clear in the roles and responsibilities for team members and understand where the tension sources might be because of overlap. Let's agree on our code of conduct and ethics and listen to one another.
[25:44]
We've got to have ground rules for meetings. Always communicate a culture of change. I want to pursue board development activities regularly and evaluate myself and afford the opportunity for board members to evaluate themselves regularly as well. And most importantly, put student success at the center of all things that involve the team. If I could encourage every superintendent to pursue those eight tenets, we would move in a very systematic way to a place where I think public education has truly reached its full potential.
[26:17] SPEAKER_02:
Well, Brad, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.
[26:20] SPEAKER_00:
It's been my privilege. Thank you so much.
[26:23] SPEAKER_01:
And now, Justin Bader on high performance instructional leadership.
[26:27] SPEAKER_02:
So high performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Dr. Brad Balch about the school board superintendent relationship? One thing I took away from our conversation is just the idea that we can do something about it. If you are a superintendent, if you are a board member, you can invest in that relationship. You can invest in your norms, your professional development, your professional learning, and get better at working together on behalf of kids. Another point that came up in our conversation that I wanted to touch on again is the importance of celebrating good news.
[27:03]
And I want to refer you to our previous interview with William D. Parker on his book, Messaging Matters, How School Leaders Can Inspire Teachers, Motivate Students, and reach communities. A lot of Will's advice in Messaging Matters, which is also published by Solution Tree, applies to superintendents. And when we are proactive, when we commit ourselves to telling the story of the good work that's taking place in our district, that word gets out into the community. But only if we go to the trouble, only if we're intentional about identifying and spreading that good news. So in addition to checking out Brad Balch's book, Building Great School Board Superintendent Teams, I want to encourage you to check out Will Parker's book, Messaging Matters, How School Leaders Can Inspire Teachers, Motivate Students, and Reach Communities, which you'll also find in the Principal Center Radio archives.
[27:56] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
