Types of Boards: Patterns in a Client Base of 650 international schools

1
Types of Boards Patterns in a Client Base of
650 international schools

• 50 parent elected
• 25 self perpetuating
• 25 hybrids of above
• 10 shadow boards

2
Ji Huey Crisis and Opportunity

• 70 of all heads have been fired
• Most were fired in their first five years
• Most heads do not survive their 3rd board chair
  in international schools, 4th in US schools
• Most chairs serve 2 years or less
• A number of chairs fall into conflict of interest
  issues

3
Types of Boards

• Factional Boards Locals, and sub groups of ex
  pats such as Americans, Aussies/Kiwis/Canadians,
  UK,
• Reactive Boards Lack of wisdom on the Board and
  reactions to constituent pressures undermine the
  Board, head and school
• Public School Boards US model of small, elected,
  narrow interests
• Boards Lacking Institutional Memory Rapid
  turnover of trustees
• Transition Boards Those that almost never manage
  well a transition to a new head
• Boards Managing Change and Pace of Change
  Failure due to board pressure or head initiatives
• Incident based Boards/governance An incident
  undoes everything
• Relational Boards/Governance The chair and/or
  Head fails to manage the relationship well

4
Factional Boards

• Those with specific factions such as significant
  minority or small majority of nationals
• Substantial subsets of national ex pat groups
  that each think differently
• Nationals want long term view
• Ex pats wants short term fixes

5
Reactive Boards

• Boards which lack memory, have conflicts of
  interest, react rather than plan
• Lack of WISDOM in decisions, town meetings
• Not analytical
• Missing key mix of strategic thinkers
• Missing non parents

6
Public School Boards

• US model of small elected boards with specific
  personal agendas
• Little sense of unity
• Constantly playing to parents
• Taking personal parent issues to new levels of
  conflict of interest

7
Institutional Memory

• Lacking due to non-functioning Committee on
  Trustees
• Lacking cultivation, screening, invitation,
  orientation, governance training, evaluation,
  warning and removal
• Rapid turnover of trustees leads to head
  termination

8
Transition Boards

• Lack of attention to transition, focusing only on
  search, then planning and initiatives
• Need to have an entry plan
• Fast head turnover

9
Managing Change

• Boards where expectations of the head are too
  high
• Too much change too fast
• Head or board taking on the wrong kind of changes
• Poor management of sensitive topics like
  compensation and evaluation/accountability

10
Incident Based

• Boards which respond to incidents
• Drug episode, constituent miscommunication
• Firing or departure of favored teacher or
  administrator
• Boards that do not know, like or trust each
  other, also a function of loss of memory

11
Relational Boards

• Boards where the head/chair partnership is always
  key and it will always be the head who leaves
• Poor management of the partnership by one or both
  parties
• Forgetting the no surprises rule
• Consulting with the board but not ceding to the
  board