SURVEY: EDUCATION IN 2050

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QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES

Question: How can we reduce meeting time without losing effectiveness?      -- Board Member in California

  • TESBM: Your question assumes that long meetings are the problem.

    They’re not. Long meetings are typically the symptom of something far more harmful: the board is spending its time ineffectively, not focused on student outcomes. Simply trying to shorten meetings without improving the board’s focus will result in less ineffective work, not more effective work. That will inevitably lead to backsliding into longer ineffective meetings again, and then the cycle continues. If you want to create the conditions for improving student outcomes, the path forward requires improving how the board focuses its time during meetings.

  • This insight is what has led us to noticing that there’s a difference between focusing on inputs vs outputs vs outcomes. Most school boards spend the majority of their meeting time discussing adult inputs in a vacuum as if an adult inputs focus is a proxy for a student outcomes focused. This is well intentioned, but mistaken. Meetings filled only with programs, staffing, operations, buildings, bonds, books -- adult inputs -- never provide the board with insight into whether or not children are actually learning and growing. The board knows a lot about what adults are trying to do but nothing about whether or not it’s working. This approach to governing take a lot of time and simultaneously de-centers student learning -- student’s results never get discussed, the actual impact on children is unintentionally treated as irrelevant -- and increases board meeting times.

  • What can boards do?

    • Clarify Priorities: Without grounding in the community’s vision (adopting Goals) and the community’s values (adopting Guardrails), we have found that boards are unlikely to adopt a long term focus on their community’s children. Engaging in the community listening necessary to identify the community’s prioritized vision and values is an unavailable step in the direction of clarifying the priorities.

    • Monitor Progress: The most effective use of the board’s time on a regularly recurring basis is monitoring progress toward its Goals about student outcomes. Actually spending time centering evidence about whether or not students are receiving the education they deserve -- as a result of our efforts, are they closer to educational justice or not -- is both one of the most powerful and least employed uses of board meeting time.

    • Align Resources: When we discuss a school system’s resources, we are talking about time, talent, and treasure. All three are important to get working in alignment, and that starts with the board. One way to align your use of time is to use a consent agenda the way it was intended. One way to align your use of talent is to delegate pre-work to staff when the needed expertise is vision/values implementation or to ad hoc committees when the needed expertise is vision/values representation. One way to align your use of treasure is to clarify for the superintendent that you will only adopt the budget once the superintendent has demonstrated that its first priority is accomplishing the Goals.

  • The board that cares about everything is the board that cares about nothing. Get clear about what your community’s priorities are. Protect time for monitoring student outcomes — ideally at least 50% of the board’s time each month. And then do the work to align the school system’s resources -- time, talent, and treasure -- with the Goals. Do these things and the focus of board meetings begins to change. The debate won’t need to be about long meetings anymore. Don’t do these things are even shorter meetings won’t serve to improve outcomes for your students.

Question: How can we strengthen collaboration with city/county partners?      -- Board Member in Connecticut

  • TESBM: When most school board members ask this question, they have in mind joint meetings with other officials, ribbon cutting on shared programs, and the like. If that is the corpus of activity, the so called partnerships are benefiting the public officials more than they’re benefiting the public’s children. Partnerships with other governmental entities often become relationship-driven -- meetings, updates, joint conversations that feel productive but don’t necessarily change outcomes for students. Effective governance strengthens collaboration by anchoring it in prioritized purpose, not political proximity. How to get there?

    • Focus the conversation. Stop asking, “how do we work together more?” Start asking, “where does working together improve our Goals about student outcomes?” If the board has adopted clear Goals, those Goals should guide where collaboration is prioritized. If the board hasn’t adopted Goals, then it hasn’t done the most fundamental work necessary to setup the school system to be an effective partner. In that moment, the school board’s failure to govern effectively is giving rise to the school system’s failure to partner effectively.

    • Define the roles in policy. Beyond 1) adopting the Goals, 2) monitoring progress toward them, and 3) making introductions between the superintendent and community partners who are committed to accomplishing the same Goals, there isn’t much for school board members to do. If board members are expecting to be involved beyond the three items above, identify where that will live in board policy. There are only four areas of board policy: Goals, Guardrails, Delegation, and Governing. Anything on this topic would most likely live in either Delegation or Governing.

    • Be consistent over time. Stable, clearly communicated priorities make it easier for city and county partners to align their efforts. Having roles embedded in policy makes it easier for the partnership to continue regardless of changes in board membership or superintendent.

  • Remember to always remain focused on student outcomes, not adult activity. Meetings and agreements are not the goal. Effective partnerships are measured by whether outcomes improve for students.

Question: Which is better: elected boards or appointed boards?      -- Board Member in Washington

  • TESBM: We know what we mean by better, but do you? We are most interested in effective school boards (it’s kinda in the name) so what we look for is which school boards are most focused on improving student outcomes -- our standard for effectiveness. One way we measure that is by looking at the percentage of time the school boards focus on monitoring progress toward their student outcomes Goals each month, ideally at least 50%. So if that’s your question -- which board member selection method most reliably results in a school board that invests at least 50% of its time each month monitoring progress toward its Goals about student outcomes -- then the answer is neither. We’ve coded elected school board meetings, appointed school board meetings, and a variety of blended school board meetings. None of them reveal a greater likelihood to focus on improving student outcomes.

  • What differences do we see? Elected school boards have a tendency to be more effective at creating for the community the experience of being heard, but have a tendency to be less effective at reaching and sustaining internal alignment. Appointed school boards have a tendency to be more effective at reaching and sustaining internal alignment, but have a tendency to be less effective at creating for the community the experience of being heard. Blended school boards, depending on the blend type and who appoints, have a tendency toward less effectiveness in both domains -- the worst of both rather than the best of both.

  • But none of that is synonymous with actually being effective at creating the conditions for improvements in student outcomes. What this tells us is that how school board members get on a school board does appear to create different predictable behavior patterns. But it doesn’t appear to be a deciding factor in whether or not the board is more effective.

INTERESTING READS & LISTENS
BOARD MEETING ANALYSIS

A subscriber asked us to watch the November meeting of a school board in California. Here are the highlights from the Regular Board Meeting:Total Minutes: 260mins

  • Minutes Focused on Student Outcomes: 0mins

  • Key Topics: Budget reductions discussion, Staffing reductions (RIF), Facilities master planning, Policy and bylaws review, Student discipline actions

  • What Coach Celebrates:

    • Inclusion of student performance data (CAASPP) reflects an emerging foundation for future goal monitoring.

    • Board is engaging in listening sessions intended to inform goal and guardrail development.

    • Meeting followed structured agenda with clear sequencing of statutory responsibilities.

  • What Coach Recommends:

    • Establish and adopt a small set of SMART student outcome goals and begin monthly monitoring; current meeting reflects 0% toward the 50% target.

    • Convert assessment presentations (e.g., CAASPP) into formal Goal Monitoring conversations tied to specific targets, trends, and superintendent strategy.

    • Reduce time spent on extended public comment during the meeting and create systems to capture input outside board time to protect focus.

    • Reorganize agenda so Goal Monitoring occurs early and is the central work of the meeting.

    • Shift board questioning toward SMART monitoring questions tied to data, strategy, and results.

UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES

Effective Campaign Season Preboarding

  • In many places, candidates are in the final stages of deciding whether or not to put their names forward to serve on their local school board. Making now the best time to begin offering trainings for aspiring school board members. Join us to discuss why and what that looks like.

  • 11am central on Friday, August 14, 2026

  • RSVP Here

Did you miss last month's 30-minute free webinar? Email Greg for a make-up session on any of our growing list of topics, including governance policy, delegation policy, effective budgeting, superintendent evaluation, professional services management, strategic planning, consent agendas, and more.

BONUS MATERIALS

For paid subscribers, here are links to additional resources (to gain access to the links below, please consider subscribing):

  • Additional details about the analyzed meeting:

    • Board Meeting Video

    • Meeting Agenda

    • Strategic Plan

    • Time Use Analysis

  • Guidance documents related to this issue:

    • Effective Time Use Evaluation

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