A Potent Strategic Governing Team from the Get-Go

BOARD-SAVVY SUPERINTENDENT

Long experience has taught me that a school district’s board of education chair and superintendent can function as a potent strategic governing team when leading significant change. I closely observed such a dynamic duo in action in a 14,000-student Midwestern district about three years ago.

The district’s newly appointed superintendent took the initiative to build an effective partnership with the board chair during her first month at the helm. She invited him to spend a Saturday morning in her conference room to become acquainted and discuss how they would work together.

The superintendent arrived that day prepared with a battery of questions to get to know her chair at a granular level: his professional and personal backgrounds, his motivation for running to be board chair, his leadership goals and desired impacts, the governance issues highest on his list, how he preferred to communicate and more.