How Does a School Board Enforce Policy?
I see a lot of support among the District leadership for clear job descriptions and duties for everyone in the District – everyone, that is, except the District leadership. Each Board member will acknowledge that the Board has the duty to enforce policy yet no Board member will allow that duty to be explicitly stated in any document. It does not appear in the newly adopted Series 1000 Policies. It does not appear in the policy that describes the duties of the Board. It does not appear in the policy on governance. Now the Board is going to adopt two more elements of Board policy that should mention this duty yet fail to do so.
The board policy preamble on the Board meeting agenda this week is an ideal place for it, but instead the preamble makes reference to it only vaguely and euphemistically as “governance tools”. It says that policies can be used by the superintendent to hold staff accountable but it neglects to say that they can be used by the Board to hold the superintendent accountable.
A district’s budget offers one approach to enforcing district policy. A board can refuse to fund activities that violate policies and fund programs it wants implemented.
A board could also deny salary increases to a superintendent (if the super’s contract doesn’t include automatic pay raises). A board could also give the super a critical evaluation, assuming a board doesn’t allow the super to dictate the elements of an evaluation.