The board and superintendent can reduce the friction and strengthen their relationship if they can understand one another's role in the school system. Cites some examples of inappropriate board behavior. Offers eight suggestions to board members to prolong the honeymoon. (MLF)

The Denver, Colorado, school board has an agenda summary sheet that streamlines communication between the board and staff members. The form, placed after the title sheet of any proposal, lists background issues, options and alternatives considered, and implications of adoption or rejection. (MLF)

A school administrator who has served as a consultant on many superintendent searches offers 10 selection tips. Board members should refrain from criticizing the former superintendent, advertise for applicants, invest sufficient funds, specify selection criteria, be honest about salary, work diligently during screening and evaluation, honor…

Major causes of "sudden-death syndrome" for superintendents include mismatched priorities, unseen problems, interference from special-interest groups, and misdirected disagreements. Beleaguered superintendents should be positive and proactive, act and speak as one person, understand agreements, seek help, listen, rewrite personnel…

Discusses how a college's momentum, fund raising, and morale all suffer with the unexpected departure of its leader after a short time in office. Explains that experts encourage colleges to develop plans to maintain key ties with donors or senior administrators during such transitions. (EV)

In this article, the author, superintendent of the Nixa R-II School District, Nixa, Missouri, describes what it is like to work with a board of education that has been named the Outstanding School Board of the Year in its state twice since 2000? He feels that the keys to the strong superintendent-board relationship are effective communication and…

The author's advice for for a school board superintendent is to assume incompetence instead of malevolence. Board members who behave inappropriately are a minority, and those with malicious intent are extremely rare. Most misbehaving board members act out of frustration. They may not understand the appropriate role of a board member.…

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the strategies Texas superintendents use to both prevent and resolve conflicts between the school board-superintendent leadership team and to examine the effects of gender, age, ethnicity, level of education, experience in education, tenure as a superintendent, leadership style, and type and…

This handbook contains eight sections and thirty-five short chapters on topics related to being a member of a California community college governing board. The eight sections are: (1) California Community Colleges; (2) The Governing Board; (3) Toward An Effective Board; (4) Policy, Planning and Monitoring; (5) The Board and the CEO; (6)…

California annually experiences significant turnover among its superintendents; 468 out of 1,002 superintendents vacated K-12 superintendent seats in California between 1986 and 1989. Of this number, 92 accepted superintendencies in other districts and 4 became county superintendents. To discover where the other 372 superintendents went,…

In 1985, a leadership liaison committee consisting of the board presidents and executive directors of five state school management associations in Pennsylvania appointed a task force to examine the board-superintendent relationship within a team management framework. After providing background information, including various definitions associated…

The superintendent's contract embodies the community's expectations of the school system's chief executive officer. The contract allows the school board and the superintendent to accomplish a number of tasks, including assuring stability in the district's leadership, creating means for resolving conflicts, and establishing procedures for meeting…

The effective evaluation of superintendents can be of great use to both school boards and the superintendents themselves. This booklet on superintendent evaluation begins with an outline of the general development of evaluation methods from informal assessments to sophisticated, mutually conducted, written performance reviews. The uses of essay…

Certain basic principles must be accepted if colleges and universities are to function in an orderly, purposeful way and to lay down those conditions necessary to insure the presence of effective leadership on the campus. Some basic principles are: (1) a college or university exists to serve the general society that created it and that supports…

An experienced chairman of the board offers advice for trustees: respect the role of the board as a whole, be discreet in campus contacts, learn, and support the president. (Author/LBH)