Pub. 9 2019-2020 Issue 1

6 How Charter School Boards Can Impact Student Achievement F ocus drives results. When a charter school board is focused on their school’s educational strategic plan and discusses it on a regular basis with the other participants who are involved, their desire for excellence trickles down, through administration to teachers at the classroom level, and positively impacts students’ growth. The following list details specific ways to implement the kind of focus that leads to excellent results. 1. Boards that lead high-performing charter schools develop patterns of focusing on high expectations for student achievement and quality instruction. These boards define clear goals toward their vision and mission. They adopt broad strategic plans that contain both goals and the action steps needed to attain the goals. Most importantly, they focus on these goals and actions from their strategic plan and discuss progress regularly at board meetings. As a result, board members are able to identify not only the purpose and process behind the school strategic plan, but their role in supporting these efforts. 2. Effective school boards have strong shared beliefs about what is possible for students and their abilities to learn. The charter school boards that see high results in student achievement at their school believe that all students can learn. They look at poverty, lack of parental involvement and other factors as challenges to overcome, not as an excuse. These board members expect to see improvements in student achievement quickly as a result of the school goals and action plan. 3. Effective charter school boards are driven by accountability. They spend less time on operational issues and are more focused on policies to improve student achievement. They establish a vision and action plan supported by policies that target student achievement. With everyone focused on achievement, boards encourage their staffs to tackle difficult issues and seek innovative solutions. They hold their administration accountable for progress but do not engage in the daily administration of the school. These boards focus on student achievement rather than administrative issues. 4. High achieving charter schools have strong com- munication between the charter school board, the administration, staff, and the community. Board members listen to the community and are able to identify concrete ways to promote community involvement. They provide staff with briefings about policy decisions. They encourage board meeting attendance by counting attendance as a volunteer opportunity. These boards proactively com- municate strategic goals and actions to the administration, staff and the community. 5. Effective board members are data savvy. Board members in high achieving charter schools identify specific student needs through data and justify decisions based on the data. They are not shy about discussing trends in dropout rates, test scores and student needs in a public meeting. They understand how to find data and know what kind of data they need to make educated decisions. 6. Effective school boards align and sustain resources to meet strategic goals and action plans. Highly effective boards use their strategic goals and action plans to drive the building of a charter school budget. With some creativity, the board and administration find ways to stretch limited dollars to allocate sufficient funding on their goals. These schools recognize and prioritize the need for professional development as a condition for improvement. They do more than simply provide funding for professional development; they can cite specific examples of professional development activities that link to their strategic plans. 7. Effective boards lead as a united team with their administration, each from their respective roles, with strong collaboration and mutual trust. These boards have a trusting and collaborative relationship with school adminis- tration. They create conditions and organizational structures that allow a director to function as the chief executive officer and instructional leader of the school. They set up a fair and equitable evaluation process of both the charter school board and the director. Most importantly, there is trust and effective communication between the board chair and the director. 8. Effective board members take part in team devel- opment and training. Highly effective boards regularly participate in activities where they learn together. They take time for study sessions that provide group opportunities for inquiry and discussion before making a final decision. They develop a tradition of on-boarding new board members allowing them to learn board functions, policies, procedures, and strategic goals. These boards find value for both formal and informal training opportunities. They participate in a mixture of learning activities including retreats, trainings, work sessions, school visits, and even social events.