Effective School Councils

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Effective School Councils Professional Learning
Communities

• Brandon Hall

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Question

• What will it take to transform TUSD school
  councils into Professional Learning Communities?
• How does this align with current research?
• Where are we now?
• What is our goal?

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Relevance

• TUSD School Council Policy
• Board Policy that

• AZ House Bill 2551
• HB 2551 (school councils performance training)
  This bill would require a school council to
  annually assess the performance of the school
  principal on a form developed by ADE. The site
  council must transmit the performance assessments
  to the district Superintendent and the
  performance assessments are required to be posted
  in "a public area of the school and on the
  schools web site." Further, the bill requires
  ADE, in cooperation with public, private, and
  nonprofit organizations, develop and implement a
  program to provide annual training in statewide
  locations to school council members. ASBA
  OPPOSES, as the responsibility to evaluate
  principal performance is vested with the district
  Superintendent and school district governing
  board. Further, it is inappropriate to post
  personnel performance evaluations rather, these
  should be retained in a persons personnel file.
  This bill failed House Third Read on a 22-34-4
  vote.

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Reasons for School Councils

• Positive
• Shift the balance of authority among school,
  district, state
• Broaden the decision-making base
• Decentralize management improve efficiency

• Negative
• Weaken entrenched school boards
• Create illusion of reform without investment in
  resources
• Shift blame for failure to individual schools

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Alignment with Research 1

• Who Decides What?
• Roles and responsibilities must be clearly
  defined
• Jurisdiction, scope, authority and responsibility
  must be delineated

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Alignment with Research 2

• Internal Elements for Success
• Committee Structure
• Enabling Leadership
• Focus on Student Learning
• Focus on Adult Learning
• School-wide Perspective

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Alignment with Research 3

• External Elements
• Long-term commitment
• Curricular guidance (framework to work within)
• Access to Information

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Baseline Data

• A Survey was delivered (online) to the site
  councils at 23 representative schools in TUSD.
• They encompassed 16 elementary, 4 middle, and 3
  high schools.
• Economic and ethnic demographics were considered
  for their selection.
• None of them applied to be TUSD School Council
  pilot schools so that we would not duplicate
  efforts as a part of that plan.

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Baseline Data Respondents
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Baseline Data - Decisions
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Baseline Data - Relationships
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Baseline Data - Accomplishments
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Baseline Data - Topics
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Future Goal

• TUSD School Councils will become professional
  learning communities who work together to improve
  student achievement.
• Everyone will have a voice.
• This collaborative/participatory design will
  model the democratic values we hope to instill in
  our students.

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Training Needs
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Sources
AERA Are School Boards an Effective Means of
School Governance?. Ed. Lindle, Jane Clark. 1998.
Univeristy of Kentucky.
David, Jane. "The Who, What, and Why of
Site-Based Management." Educational Leadership
Jan. 1996 4-9.
Gleason, Sonia Donohue, Nick Leader, Gerald.
"Boston Revisits School-Based Management."
Educational Leadership Jan. 1996 24-27.
Peterson del Mar, David. "School-Site Councils
The Hard Work of Achieving Grassroots Democracy."
ERIC Digest 89 1994 1-52.
Sewall, Angela Maynard. "New School Governance
The School Board and its Future." EDRS 11/1996
2-13.