Lay governance of schools is an American tradition, assuring local communities have a say in the education of their children. A school board can be a force for much good or a difficult nightmare. How board members see and perform their roles makes an enormous difference. I can see schools through several different lenses - as families linked by shared needs and personal relationships, as factories with human products, as virtual human jungles with scarce resources and competing interests, and even as sacred places that nurture human possibility. The way I perform my role reflects all of these.

I do prefer the images of some more than others, but all accurately depict schools; so, the result is we board members have significant, different responsibilities. Each of us on the San Carlos board may emphasize the importance of different aspects of our role. Together, we create a board that functions more or less effectively.

The achievement of children is a foremost goal for me and absolutely all of us. The board simply cannot fail to develop clear academic progress goals with the superintendent, principals and staff. We must also assure that accountability measures are in place for evaluating all students' progress.

With board changes, new principals and staff hires, the focused progress we want is harder to sustain than most would imagine. The board's knowledge, analysis and expertise should be used to put in place a structure for accountability. If the board fails to set standards of excellence or fails to demonstrate excellence in its own functioning, the board forsakes its chance to act as a positive organizational model. The most important thing the board can do is keep the importance of achievement high with agenda time dedicated to the various components of achievement. Board members should allow staff to lead curriculum change processes and not damage forward progress through public criticism of staff effort.

With full agendas, a shortage of time, and many people and issues competing for attention, school boards often get lost in details and can lose sight of important educational goals and principles. Since there are a great many issues and areas of organizational growth possible for the board to throw weight behind, the board's unity and consistency of direction are critical to progress on academic goals and the maintenance of systems of accountability. The board should carefully select issues and not consider so many that academic progress is lost in importance.

The board needs to act together. No board member has power outside the governance team. To be effective, each board member needs to work collaboratively with others, balancing individual concerns against those of the institution as a whole. Much of what the board does to establish a climate for excellence proceeds from the tone it sets individually and collectively. Trustees can bring knowledge and expertise the district needs, but the role of technical expert is not the primary role of any one board member. One board member should not regularly substitute technical know-how for the professional judgment of educators.

If schools are families, the primary leadership responsibility of board members is to serve the best interests of all members: teachers, administrators, parents, and, above all, children. The profound ethical importance of seeing the school district as made up of all these important stakeholders, including classified staff, has guided me to serve diverse interests in the best way I could. From this perspective of school as family, the responsibility of school boards is caring, respect, and understanding of needs and concerns of all members of the district family.

How a board governs is every bit as important as the decisions it makes. The way we come to decisions affects our effectiveness in creating a positive climate that achieves the best from staff and affects our ability to advocate for the district and children.
If board members abuse one another or staff, they demonstrate exactly the wrong values. Boards ask staff to respect and care for students and support one another. The board's credibility is undermined if it is unable to live up to its own ethical standards.

Stressful school budgets call for particular leadership skills. Adjusting the prism through which I view our schools, the district looks remotely like "Survivor" to some. We are shifting coalitions of interest groups with specific values, beliefs and interests, and in this political view of the district, there are enduring differences, scarce resources and competing needs. Some of the groups are defined formally by organizational position: students, teachers, administrators, or board members. Others are defined by their interests in special parts of the educational program: music, special education, gifted-and-talented education. When interests are diverse and resources scarce, some conflict is inevitable. It is at this that the board must be an advocate. An effective advocate has a clear direction and agenda, a network of allies and supporters, and skills in negotiating. Individually and collectively, school board members may play a critical role. Now, as an example, the board needs to support constructively increased SCEF fund raising for all and discourage negative approaches.

When our schools' face brutal sacrifice, the atmosphere is politically charged and people experience honest disagreement. Board members need to be guided by principles of fairness and justice as trade-offs balance competing needs. Our goals and values cannot be redefined strictly in terms of a specific interest group.

The last lens through which I view the district is through its aspirations for children and the future, embodied recently in strategic thinking and planning. In a deep sense, I believe my duty is to have faith in the potential of all children, teachers and the community supporting the schools, to grow and develop. That means belief in the capacity of every child to grow and learn, faith in teachers and in the community. The role of the board is to help the staff, the students, and the community sustain their own belief. Teaching and learning can be completely exhilarating, but also frustrating and exhausting. Students often enter school with an excitement for learning that they lose. Teachers may enter the profession with enthusiasm, confidence and a desire to help children, but lose energy through challenges presented by working conditions or other issues. Some never lose energy. I simply believe board members have responsibility to sustain and encourage others.