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` the outcome? ‘An encouraging environment.’ All this kind of fluff. Go back and look at your mission statement. I will wager you the odds are that 50 percent of it is meaningless and worthless.”
A revamped mission statement specifying outcomes essential for student success in learning would go a long ways toward refocusing the board.
“The role of the board is to ensure or to make sure that the school accomplishes what it should,” Carpenter said. “How can you perform that role if you haven’t prescribed or at least identified the outcomes that you’re hoping to achieve?”
Once everyone is clear on the outcomes, the focus can shift to sidestepping what Carpenter describes as “the five dysfunctions of charter school boards.
Dysfunction #1: Managing versus Governing
According to Carpenter, this is the most prevalent and “troubling” dysfunction that he observes in his work with charter schools around the country.
“When the board is talking about how something is or was going to be done, it is talking about the wrong thing, however helpful the board thinks it is being.” Stepping in and doing the manager’s job is not the answer,” he said. Instead, he maintains, the board should be focused on its mission-specific outcomes.
Dysfunction #2: Misappropriating Board Authority
We’ve all seen them. The board member, often with no full-time commitments, who patrols the school hallways, steps in voluntarily to build bookshelves, stands outside the school directing traffic. Despite the possible positive result, this is not effective board behavior, according to Carpenter.
“I call this the Antonio Banderas syndrome,” Carpenter observed. “This is where the individual board member thinks the power of the whole board rests with them.”
To be continued in next month’s issue.
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Sandy Houston is a cofounder and past board member of the Arizona Charter Schools Association, as well as founder of the Arizona Montessori Charter Schools Consortium. She has owned and operated charter schools over a career spanning 40 years, and has opened nine private Montessori schools and four charter schools. She was trained in the Montessori method by Mario Montessori, the son of the famed Montessori founder, Dr. Maria Montessori. She serves as the international Montessori Council chair for charter schools. You can reach her at shouston@resolutions-esp.com
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