Top 3 Transparency Challenges for Today’s School Boards
School boards face many transparency challenges that can impact the level of trust and engagement from the local public.
School boards face many transparency challenges that can impact the level of trust and engagement from the local public.
Sunshine laws establish a standard of transparency between school boards and the public constituents they serve.
The increasing use of board performance evaluation software can lead to more efficient and effectual performance reviews and assessment.
It is vital to understand the varying aspects of diversity and the role it plays for the school board and the work completed for your local district.
School boards play a critical role in developing cybersecurity standards for the district to protect sensitive district and student data.
Writing minutes of a meeting and maintaining those minutes for a school board is a serious task, but the right tool can make the responsibility lighter.
School boards are accountable for ensuring that information related to students and the school district stays protected from sensitive data exposure.
Agenda management systems are useful for school boards in supporting agenda creation, compliance with state open meeting laws, privacy and security.
The question of succession planning for elected boards is a complicated one that requires a careful approach and comprehensive understanding.
Evidence is mounting that demonstrates the impact school boards can have on student achievement. We provide a comprehensive guide for student success.
A better understanding of governance responsibilities will help board members educate the community, propagating the next generation of leaders.
With a return on increasing civic engagement within the community, investments in technology for school boards are truly worthwhile.
Civic engagement is an unending, continuous process and the work is never truly finished. The needs of your community will change, possibly every year.
Good governance creates great outcomes, helping school boards bolster transparency, security, citizen engagement and much more.
Robert’s Rules of Order can make school board meetings beacons of efficiency. The right structure can spur successful meetings every time.
Follow these six best practices, and the community will naturally trust structured meetings grounded in explicit guidelines and accessible materials.
School boards need technological communication training by experts to comply with a district-wide technology policy in order to best champion cybersecurity.
When school boards drop the ball on transparency, they lose a fragile public trust that takes years to rebuild and can damage a district's reputation.
School boards can get up-to-speed with new technology by getting frequent training by experts and providing constant reinforcement of best practices.
With the right education and goal-tracking software, it is easy to assess current practices, quantify goals and monitor results for long-term success.
The school board liaison plays an essential role in creating a positive spirit of community engagement within a school district.
As digital communication changes the meaning of “open meetings” and “open records,” school boards have an opportunity to vastly increase their transparency.
Active collaboration between school boards and city councils may not be common, but it makes them both more fruitful servants of the community they share.
School boards using inadequately secured board portals put all of their district’s data in dire danger and create imminent cyber risk.
To comply with the Brown Act, school boards in California must make their meetings “open” in clearly specified ways - we've outline what they need to know.
School boards and city councils have to work together, or students suffer. Public transparency is one of the strongest initiatives they can put into action.
School boards can leverage paperless meeting technology to streamline meeting processes and make each aspect of board work leaner, faster and smarter.
The school board governance committee may review and assess new or existing policies or governance procedures.
What makes a good school board member is certain characteristics that encourage board and district development.
In episode 16 of The Corporate Director Podcast, Cindy Moehring and Adam Berger discuss the board's role in building an ethical culture and the value of thinking like a private equity board.
For any leadership position time management is an essential skill to possess, but often more so for school administrators.
Download our New School Board Member Orientation Kit for practical strategies and quick tips as you welcome new members onto your board.
Being proactive in addressing the issues that can lead to reputational risk allows school boards to best protect their districts.
There are endless benefits to boosting community engagement within your school district to build a stronger relationship with the public.
Strong collaboration between the school board and superintendent is vital for district and student achievement.
School board transparency is vital to ensure that community needs are appropriately represented and that goals are met.
For school boards to be successful, they need to evolve to utilize strategic tools and informed practices to perform their best work for the district.
Establishing a technology plan for school districts is vital to student achievement and securing sensitive data.
Download The School Board's Guide to Modern Governance to help your public education board improve transparency, engagement and inclusivity.
For school boards, oversight of risk management is imperative to safeguarding the district and its assets to better enable student success.
The example of an agenda for a committee meeting that is outlined in this article can be used for any type of school board committee.
Download our School Board Financial Toolkit with key budgeting best practices to help school administrators approach budgeting more effectively.
It's vital to be abreast of school board meeting minutes legal requirements to maintain accurate records for the district and transparency with the public.
There are tools available that boards can utilize to efficiently, effectively, and successfully fulfill their school board member responsibilities.
School districts have become major targets for cyber hackers in recent years, and the seriousness of this issue still evades many school boards.
Modern governance is embracing the tools available to streamline your processes so you can focus on the job of improving education for children.
Working to improve governance, policies, budgeting, and more, the board of trustees can establish a culture of support and success within the community.
Without a governance model, conflict and challenges can arise in leadership; this can then shift the focus from student achievement to internal struggles.
School board member training and development allows board members to make use of training resources and implement practices to best serve the public.
Recording and maintaining school board meeting minutes is a serious task, but leveraging the right tools can make this responsibility easier.
Without proper planning and preparation through a well-organized agenda, board meetings can easily become derailed.
Budgeting is how districts plan for the best use of their resources, and school districts need the right information that helps guide decision-making.
Manual, paper-based board document management methods can no longer meet the demands of school boards. School board management software meets the challenge.
With the right software, school boards can share factual information without creating the private deliberations that open meeting laws forbid.
Discussing priorities, allocating resources, and monitoring progress will help board members make budgetary decisions to propel them toward their goals.
Using the best tools, the school board can reach new levels of transparency, responsibility and productivity.
Spelling out the scope of each board member’s responsibilities, and those of the board itself, prevents lasting errors.
At every stage of the process, technology makes self-assessment easy, accurate and thorough – all without sacrificing state-of-the-art security.
Paying attention to community engagement, accountability, teamwork and transparency sets the stage for more and more students to reach ambitious goals.
A strong, balanced board is too important to be left to chance. Deliberate succession planning makes intentional governance a reality for school boards.
School boards play a distinct role and assume specific responsibilities in relation to other stakeholders in the shared quest for educational attainment.
These five core elements make school boards rise to the top of the class, bringing them the “magic” that charms the leading districts in the country.
By adopting the following best practices for board governance, public boards can meet the uncommonly high standards that they inevitably face.
A new member to a school board can see gaps in transparency that seasoned members don’t recognize, thus helping the board improve as a whole.
A board with some technological expertise can find opportunities and threats critical to a district’s success and brings a number of other key advanatges.
These simple governance protocols instill trust, welcome every constituent and invite communication, boosting citizen engagement and transparency.
By teaching school board members about how a meeting management system can boost both security and transparency, you can build a compelling case.
Public boards implementing these six best practices can remain in compliance with the Freedom of Information Act and the Public Meetings Act.
School board conflicts can be addressed by drawing on the experience of other districts, and future conflicts can be prevented with the right plan in place.
Board software that does not provide the necessary features for public boards may be cheaper, but creates long-term costs and inefficiencies.
Google Docs opens stored data to risks that no conscientious school board can afford. Smart boards find third-party hosts who offer the security they need.
School boards are one of the most targeted groups for cyberattacks, which is why understanding and implementing sound cybersecurity practices is so crucial.
A school board’s public-facing website host can meet all of its needs by employing a third-party vendor that caters to its governance requirements.
It is now possible for a school board meeting to accomplish more, keep confidential material safer, reach more of the public, save time and the environment.
Common sense and a history of rulings suggest guidelines for keeping municipal board communications compliant with open meeting laws.
A school board agenda should provide more than a list of topics to be discussed in the meeting; an outstanding agenda gives structure to the meeting itself.
The board of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leveraged BoardDocs to increase transparency and public acces. Learn how they benefited from the technology.
School board meetings can be assessed by whether their processes and outcomes reflect eight characteristics that the NSBA has linked to great school boards.
The minutes of school board meetings become historical records, and therefore must include all the right information as dictated by Robert's Rules of Order.
Governance best practices for colleges should factor in the nature of academics, college’s development, availability of resources & stakeholder expectations
Poor or nonexistent executive CEO succession planning causes investors to raise their eyebrows and can often result in the drop of a corporation’s ratings.
Running a smooth, purposeful school board meeting is an acquired skill. Follow these tips to harness the energy and ideas in the room to get business done.
A higher education cybersecurity breach could expose critical info & governing board members should seek to educate themselves possible risks.
Boards of directors and management need to respond to a ransomware crisis the same way they respond to any company crisis to ensure a good response.
Board effectiveness highlights the perspectives, traits, and approaches that separate successful school boards from their counterparts.
Leveraging the right inclusive technology, school boards can encourage engagement for all community members.
Finding ways to streamline and simplify aspects of school board meetings is vital to conducting effective meetings.
Technology can be intimidating, but it's a resource that can facilitate board mobility and push school boards to perform their best work.
Effective strategic planning aids a school’s board with governance decisions and provides direction for the future.
To begin to develop and establish cybersecurity training for your school board, there are core steps that need to be explored and addressed.
There are several issues associated with executive session board meetings, but these risks can be mitigated by being aware and using the right resources.
Board collaboration software is a resource to be utilized by the school board to maintain focus on student achievement.
Today’s school boards have begun to face the expectation of raising student achievement. Our Student Success Kit provides the resources to drive results.
School board governance matters. Studies point to five practices of school boards that bring about higher student success rates.
Governance has struggled to keep pace with today’s public education landscape. Learn why a modern approach to governance is necessary.
To prepare for a school board meeting that gets decisions made, apply three essential tools: effective protocols, a working agenda and strong infomatics.
Monitoring progress with the right software and training made toward the goals of the strategic plan boosts educational outcomes.
While posting meeting minutes exceeds the letter of the law, it satisfies the spirit of the Brown Act and shows a commitment to transparency.
Following these nine guidelines will eliminate the common barriers to a productive, cooperative and transparent school board meeting.