Georgia district tries to address board dysfunction, save accreditation
At a joint news conference just two days into his job as “corrective superintendent,” John W. Thompson tried to display confidence about the tremendous challenge before him: keeping the Clayton County public school system from losing its accreditation on Sept. 1. He heard from state officials assigned by Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to work with the district that the task of untangling its governance mess might be virtually impossible. “I’m not sure any superintendent can fix this,” state school board member William Bradley Bryant said. In a letter to the governor, he and fellow board member James E. Bostic Jr. even asked to be released from the duty Mr. Perdue had assigned them, a request the governor granted. The two said their efforts to work with members of the warring Clayton County school board had been “unwelcome and disregarded.” The stakes could hardly be higher in a school leadership crisis that has dragged on since last fall and which threatens to make the district the first nationally in almost 40 years to lose its accreditation. Loss of that crucial seal of approval, in this case from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, or SACS, could mean future Clayton County graduates would have trouble being accepted to college or would miss out on merit scholarships. And while the situation here in Clayton County is clearly extreme, it also serves as a warning to elected school board members nationwide that their behavior in office can have severe consequences for their districts in an era of increased accountability. “What we’re trying to do is help boards set goals for schools, be strategic, and to forget all the adult games that end up distracting people,” said Anne L. Bryant, the executive director of the National School Boards Association, based in Alexandria, Va.
Mark Elgart, the executive director of SACS and the official who wrote the report on the Clayton County district, said there has been a trend in Georgia and elsewhere “toward board governance losing sight of its role.” Standards outlined by the Advanced Accreditation Commission, a national group of which SACS is a part, speak of boards and leaders that establish a vision for a district, a plan for improvement and who collaborate and enact policies that work toward that vision. Even before the investigation in Clayton County, Mr. Elgart said, SACS had started working with the Georgia state board of education to draft “board reform legislation” that would set minimum qualifications for local school board members, require them to meet certain expectations if they want to run again, and mandate training. “Most state legislation is nonspecific about the roles of boards,” he said. Several states do set minimum training requirements for serving on local school boards. In 2005, for example, a law was passed in Arkansas that increased the number of training hours for new school board members from six to nine. And earlier this year, a law passed in Mississippi that increased training for board members of districts with failing schools or serious financial problems. But Kathy Christie, the chief of staff at the Education Commission of the States, in Denver, said such legislation “goes in spurts” and hasn’t been a recent trend.
Mr. Elgart of SACS said that in addition to the fact that many of the board members are new to public office, one factor that probably has contributed to the disruption on the board is that most of the members are educators themselves. “The idea of a board is lay people assisting the professionals,” he said. “An educator is not a layperson.” One of the steps that the accrediting body told Clayton County board members to take is to participate in training on their roles and responsibilities. So far, some have taken classes through an institute at the University of Georgia, in Athens. But Mr. Elgart said that while some of the members have engaged in training, their participation has been spotty. The Georgia School Boards Association held an ethics workshop in late April, but none of the remaining Clayton County board members took part. There may be some signs of hope, however. Jeannie M. “Sis” Henry, the executive director of the Georgia school boards’ group, said that before resigning, the Clayton County board’s former chairwoman asked for the association’s help once new board members are elected. “Can dysfunctional boards improve? Absolutely,” said Ms. Henry, who has been training school board members for 30 years. “They have to hit bottom. But if they operate from good intent, and they are willing to operate as a team, I have seen school boards make dramatic changes.”
Source: Education Week, 6/3/08, By Linda Jackson
[Editor’s Note: The in-depth story excerpted above also details the long history of board and district controversies in Clayton County, describes Mr. Thompson’s actions and plans, and discusses upcoming elections in which more than 30 candidates have qualified for seven seats on the nine-member school board. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports below on the training some of those candidates have received in a program being provided statewide by the Georgia School Boards Association and the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. More background is available at the next link. Finally, NSBA’s Center for Public Education has collected user-friendly online resources on good governance, including a brochure for voters that explains the critical importance of school board elections and lists some considerations for evaluating candidates.]
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6/4/08, By Megan Matteuchi
NSBA School Law pages on Georgia school boards task force
Center for Public Education resources on good governance