QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES
Question: How can the board improve feedback loops with district leadership? -- Board Members in New Hampshire & Kentucky
TESBM: It depends on what you mean by improving feedback loops. One common issue we hear from board members is a frustration about sharing a concern with the superintendent but then never hearing back about it. Another common issue we hear is that issues surfaced during Goal/Guardrail monitoring conversations seem to go nowhere. These are two very different situations that require very different feedback loops. Let’s address both.
Regarding concerns that are shared with the superintendent:
The first step is clarifying whether the concern is actually board work. Effective school boards have only three categories of board work: Goals, Guardrails, and legal requirements. If the concern is not directly one of those three, then it is superintendent work. The board needs a process for this (see below), but that process leaves all management of the issue with the superintendent.
When concerns are board work, the board should avoid vague communication patterns. Instead, boards should create a clear process for how concerns are elevated, tracked, and revisited. A common way this process might work looks like:
Concerns shared with the superintendent are acknowledged (usually by a designee) within a defined timeframe.
The superintendent’s designee identifies whether the issue requires immediate operational handling or future board discussion.
The full board receives follow-up concerning what actions were taken, what was learned, or why no action was recommended (usually via an online system).
Without a predictable process, feedback loops become relationship- / personality-driven. With a predictable process, it’s easier for the staff’s takeaway to be that concerns raised by board members are intended to improve system performance rather than simply express frustration or play political games.
Regarding issues that are surfaced during monitoring:
Effective monitoring works when the conversation is predominantly strategic in nature. When boards feel like issues go nowhere, it is often because the monitoring conversation leaned into tactical “recommendations” rather than strategic discussions. Two things are needed to address this:
Whomever is facilitating the monitoring conversation needs to identify when board members are giving advice/making recommendations and interrupt that behavior. Monitoring conversations simply aren’t the appropriate venue for that. The purpose shouldn’t be to silence the board member, it should be to support them in identifying and asking the strategic question instead of the tactical version.
The superintendent needs to ensure that they highlight — before the monitoring conversation ends — what (if anything) was learned, what strategy adjustments are being made, what evidence will demonstrate improvement, and when the board should expect to revisit the issue. The superintendent owning the follow-up items is important because that positions them to determine whether or not there are any.
Here are some general principles that apply to both situations.
From an effective governance perspective, boards do not improve feedback loops by asking for more updates, more detail, or more meetings. They improve feedback loops by changing the structure of how information flows and how it is used.
It is important for boards to distinguish between wanting confirmation that something was heard versus wanting operational involvement in solving it.
Predictable systems create stronger feedback loops than informal conversations. If your board doesn’t have an exact procedure in place for the items described above, do that before you do anything else; this is board failure, not a superintendent failure.
Question: What evidence do we have that our board actions are creating the culture necessary for improved student outcomes? -- Board Member in Idaho
TESBM: Culture is the cumulative result of behavior over time. Since adult behavior responds to what is prioritized, measured, and enforced, boards influence culture by what they focus their time discussing, measuring, and enforcing.
Importantly, what a board does is more influential to school system culture than what a board says. If what the board does (use of time) is in conflict with what the board says (adopted policy), then the board should expect that culture will bend in the direction of its actions. If a board spends all of its meeting time on financial and operational matters but says in its policies that student learning is what’s most important, that board should expect that staff will primarily focus on financial and operational matters — regardless of whether that has a corresponding impact on student outcomes.
This insight offers at least two different ways boards could measure whether or not what they are doing is being echoed by the staff — whether or not the culture they’re exhibiting is being mirrored or not.
Compare overall board use of time with staff use of time. Conduct a time use evaluation for the past three or six month period for all board meetings but then analyze within that same set of meetings to see how the staff used their time specifically. The evidence you’re likely to see: staff time on student outcomes is likely to be similar to board time focused on student outcomes. If the board doesn’t create a culture of focusing on student outcomes during board meetings, it’s exceedingly rare for the staff to pay it much attention either.
Compare board requests for information. Conduct an analysis of all board member requests for the past three or six month period, then conduct a board use of staff time analysis for the same period. The evidence you’re likely to see: what staff spent time on was predicted by what board members focused on. If the board doesn’t create a culture of focus on student learning in its requests/questions outside of board meetings, it’s exceedingly rare for the staff to offer it much attention in its governance work either.
Question: My superintendent isn't following through on promises they make to the board. What can we do about this pattern of behavior other than job termination? -- Board Members in MIssouri & California
TESBM: This isn’t uncommon, unfortunately. But it tends to be quite fixable since it’s usually the result of a lack of process and ownership. Our coaching is:
The board needs to work with the superintendent to design a process for exactly what happens when requests/concerns come in from board members (including the means by which they are to be received).
The superintendent needs to create a process for ensuring that every request they or their staff receives all get funneled into this process. Often this is as simple as having a staff member join the superintendent for important meetings to write down any promises made and push them into the aforementioned process.
Once the process is in place, then our coaching is for the superintendent to identify one person on their staff (who isn’t them) to have full ownership of that process on a day-to-day basis. Feel free to contact us for examples of board/superintendent teams that are doing this well.
Putting a new process like this in place typically will take at least three months to shake out the details, make modifications, and get working for both the board and the staff, so be patient in the beginning.
If after three months of having a process in writing followed by having a staff member owning the implementation of the process doesn’t cure the situation, that’s a significant red flag. An appropriately serious conversation between board leadership and the superintendent is probably the next step.
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
Ideas from a policy governance coach about the board’s use of time.
Is your school board improving student outcomes or maintaining status quo?
The school board/superintendent relationship is important. This podcasts talks about how to make it work.
BOARD MEETING ANALYSIS
A subscriber asked us to watch the January meeting of a school board in California. Here are the highlights from the Regular Board Meeting:
Total Minutes: 430mins
Minutes Focused on Student Outcomes: 0mins
Key Topics: Litigation settlement, Labor negotiations, Budget challenges, Board policies
What Coach Celebrates:
The board efficiently processed a large volume of required consent and action items.
What Coach Recommends:
Adopt a predictable Goal monitoring agenda item and protect it from displacement by adult-input discussions.
Reallocate at least 50% of meeting time to monitoring progress toward student outcome goals using board-adopted metrics.
For unique topics, consider moving extended public comment and presentations to special meetings to preserve time at regular meetings for focusing on student outcomes.
UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES
Effective Board Member Requests/Concerns
Board members, as representatives of the vision and values of the community, are going to have questions, concerns, and requests related to things they hear from the community. What are the best ways to manage all this in a manner that doesn’t dilute the board’s focuse on student outcomes? Let’s talk about it!
11am central on Friday, June 12, 2026
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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
Effective Agenda Evaluation
Board Use of Staff Time
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