QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES
Question: How can I know whether or not the superintendent’s monitoring reports are useful or fluff? -- Board Member in Iowa
TESBM: Effective boards don’t judge monitoring reports by the packet thickness or number of charts. They judge them by whether the report helps the board do its job better. Four key elements need to be present for a monitoring report to be effective:
The Priority: Does it clearly articulate which Goal or Guardrail is being monitored? If you have to look hard to find it, then it doesn’t.
The Data: Does it clearly articulate the previous three reporting periods (if data exists), the current reporting period, and the next three projected reporting periods (if projections exist) on a line graph? If it’s not simple for anyone to read and interpret the current performance trajectory, it’s not a strong monitoring report.
The Interpretation: Does it clearly articulate — via visual labels like red/yellow/green or textual labels like meets/approaching/does not meet — the superintendent’s interpretation of whether the Priority is likely to be met? Besides the narrow view the data offers, the board deserves a broad view of the superintendent’s perspective.
The Evidence & Plan: Does it clearly articulate the superintendent’s basis for their interpretation and their planned response to what the data and their interpretation are suggesting? Ideally, any initiatives shared here are in SMART format.
If any of these things aren’t present, the board should send the monitoring report back because it lacks the minimum information necessary for the board to do its job. When those items are in place, after reading the report board members should be able to answer questions like:
What did we learn from the data?
Does this change the questions we should ask next?
What impact, if any, does this have on our current budget?
What impact, if any, should we see on future budgets?
Which of the superintendent’s current portfolio of initiatives are working and which don’t have evidence of workability?
If a report only describes activity or effort, it may be interesting—but it isn’t monitoring. In general, if a monitoring report doesn’t help the board decide whether to stay the course or expect a change in strategy, it’s not doing its job.
Question: As a board, how can we more effectively communicate with our community given its broad diversity? -- Board Member in California
TESBM: Thank you for this particular question: “as a board.” Effective school boards systematically and collaboratively pursue community outreach/engagement work. Ineffective board members skip effective board work and instead opt for effective individual elected official work. The key difference: effective school board work accrues to the benefit of the school system and students, while effective individual elected official work accrues to the benefit of the individual elected official and individual constituents. We don’t suggest that one is right and one is wrong, just that the consequences of choosing one versus the other are real. Our coaching is that if your intention is to be student outcomes focused, you’ll pick the community outreach/engagement approach most aligned with that.
As to the heart of your question, the key inquiry is about connecting with a diverse group of constituents. Here’s what doesn’t work:
Conducting all of the communication at board meetings
Interacting with the loudest voices as if they represent all voices
Interacting with the people you already know as if they’re a proxy for all voices
Mistaking a few anecdotes from friends/family as broadly representative insights
Going only to the parts of town where you’re comfortable
Interacting with community members only during the days of the week or times of day that are convenient for you
Going out as an individual board member rather than collaboratively as a full board
Almost every school board meeting you’ve ever seen likely used three or more of the practices described above. If the intention is to have a board meeting where board business is conducted, that’s not necessarily problematic. If the intention is to communicate effectively with a diverse cross-section of your community, it is deeply problematic. What to do instead?
Quality Over Quantity: The question is not how often the board communicates, but whether its communication reinforces clarity, coherence, and trust across the system — especially with communities that have historically experienced schools done to them rather than with them.
Reinforce Role Clarity: Be clear about what the board is responsible for and what it isn’t. The board is accountable for literally everything in a school system, but it’s responsible for — does the day-to-day work of — very few things. Effective communication starts when boards explain their role plainly: representing the community’s vision and values and holding the system accountable for results. When communities understand what decisions the board actually makes, trust increases.
Clarify Intention Up Front: Boards communicate more effectively when they are explicit about why they are listening and how what they hear will be used. Listening without explaining how input informs decisions creates frustration, especially in communities that have historically felt unheard.
Calendarize Community Outreach/Engagement: Effective school boards build a multi-year calendar that describes all of the times each year that the board will participate in community outreach and engagement. When building the calendar, intentionally select dates and times that work for community members and families across the school system.
Communicate Results: By communicating decisions as well as dialogue, boards close the loop on effective communication. Diverse communities need to hear not only that the board listened, but what the board decided and why. Closing the loop — especially when the decision is difficult — signals respect and seriousness.
Be Student Outcomes Focused: Communities want schools that are effective and school leaders who are focused on why school systems exist: to improve student outcomes. Governance conversations are most inclusive when they are anchored in what students need to know and be able to do. Outcomes provide common ground across cultures, languages, and experiences.
Focus On Their Needs, Not Your Comfort: It’s important to honor different ways that different communities engage. Effective boards recognize that not all families engage through the same channels or in the same ways. Communication improves when boards support multiple, accessible avenues for engagement without expecting communities to adapt to board convenience.
Teachers need coaches to be their best. Principals need coaches to be their best. Superintendents need coaches to be their best. School boards need coaches to be their best. If your school board wants support to be great on behalf of the students you serve, click below for a free consultation.
INTERESTING READS & LISTENS
Without naming the district currently facing this situation, this author offers solid insights into how boards deal with superintendent emergencies.
Even though leading classroom instruction is not the school board’s job, it’s nice to occassionally be reminded of the powerful impact of highly effective instruction.
Useful ideas to revisit while in the midst of budget season.
Looking for a new competitive sport for your school? Until we get competitive school board meeting watching, there’s competitive excel spreadsheeting!
BOARD MEETING ANALYSIS
A subscriber asked us to watch the January meeting of a school board in Virginia. Here are the highlights from the School Board Business Meeting:
Total Minutes: 132mins
Minutes Focused on Student Outcomes: 0mins
Key Topics: Staff reports, Specialty programs, Board actions
What Coach Celebrates:
Agenda sequencing and facilitation were orderly and predictable.
Public comment was provided a clear and protected space within the meeting.
What Coach Recommends:
Establish and calendar Goal monitoring as a standing agenda item, with clearly identified student outcome data.
Require that major presentations explicitly connect to board-adopted Goals or Guardrails, or be handled outside of the board meeting.
Coach board members to shift from incidental questions to SMART monitoring questions during meetings to protect time for student outcomes focus.
UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES
Effective Agenda Design
Join us for a conversation about how to create an effective school board meeting agenda — one that has your school board focused on improving student outcomes rather than leaving you exhausted, frustrated, and not having made an impact on student learning.
11am central on Friday, March 13, 2026
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 Goal Monitoring
Effective Agenda Design
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