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LUHS Explores New Board Direction

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Four years ago the Lakeland Union High School board of education turned down a consulting firm’s proposal to dramatically shake up how the nine-member board conducts itself.

At Monday’s special board meeting, representatives of Aspen Group International were back to the board, which has several new members, to renew their offer.

Ginger Hopkins and Randy Quinn of Aspen spent 90 minutes via Zoom conferencing explaining the benefits of their trademarked “coherent governance” principles that would free the board from operational oversight of the district. The board would set policies for the district administrator to follow and state goals to be achieved.

“I can tell you that having sat on as an assistant superintendent in charge of instruction for a few districts now, it always amazes me how little time boards are really spent focusing on kids or adults,” Hopkins said. “Basically (with the Aspen model), you’re going to set up policies that will guide how you behave together and how you’re going to lead the district.

“Stop putting out fires; govern proactively,” Hopkins offered as one result of coherent governance. “Typically, you’re going to see very improved student performance, because you're going to really focus the work of the district on what you care about.”

“Coherent Governance provides a framework to enable boards to lead the organization through policy, rather than the usual custom of board approval of administrative recommendations,” according to an explanation on the firm’s website.

In other words, the board would leave most decision making to the district administrator and his or her team. As an example, under coherent governance guidelines the administrator would decide whether or not to hold prom or require wearing of masks during a covid pandemic, just as long it fell under the board’s directive to keep students and staff safe.

The board would be expected to explain to the public that the administrator was following board policy, and the matter would not come to the board for review. Nonetheless, the administrator would be wise to keep the board informed of his decision, Quinn said.

Aspen contends that many school boards – they said there are 16,000 in the U.S. – waste time as they micro-manage, muddy district vision and cause frustration by acting on matters that superintendents should be held accountable for in day-to-day operations.

The two Aspen representatives said Lakeland could expect to reduce its many policies down to 30 to 35. They would cover four areas: operational expectations, governance process, board-superintendent relationship and results.

While they would provide templates to help Lakeland develop its new policies, the board would still decide what authority they would give up or retain.

Administrator Rob Way said, “I love the concept of clear lanes. You gave the analogy of swimming lanes, and I think that is what administration, my whole team, would value.”

Aspen would charge the district a flat fee of $50,000 to train the board over several days and to develop new policies that follow coherent governance. The $50,000 fee could be spread over two fiscal years to lessen its budget impact. The district could shave some cost by doing some work itself, they said.

Other than a number of questions, the board did not act on the proposal. It will return to the board at a future meeting where Aspen’s costs, including yearly fees, will be discussed.

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