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TRUSTEESHIP 101

TRUSTEESHIP 101. What have you gotten yourself into?. CAIS Trustee/School Head Conference San Francisco January 26, 2008. The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. Many rewards of trusteeship Unexpected downsides Not everyone is cut out for trusteeship. Obligations and Liabilities.

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TRUSTEESHIP 101

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  1. TRUSTEESHIP 101 What have you gotten yourself into? CAIS Trustee/School Head Conference San Francisco January 26, 2008

  2. The Good, the Bad & the Ugly • Many rewards of trusteeship • Unexpected downsides • Not everyone is cut out for trusteeship

  3. Obligations and Liabilities • Duties of Care, Loyalty, and Obedience • The board is ultimately responsible for the school

  4. New Trustee Required Reading • Mission, values and vision statements • Articles of incorporation • Bylaws • Internal policies and procedures • Audit and IRS 990 • Insurance coverage • Strategic plan and implementation plan • Charge and goals for your committees

  5. Roles and Responsibilities • Individual responsibilities • Engage • Be an ambassador • Fundraise

  6. Roles and Responsibilities cont. • Board as a whole • Mission • Head of School • Financial • Legal • Sustain the board

  7. Leadership Partnership From Trustee Handbook by Mary DeKuyper

  8. Parent Issue • At a school fundraising event, Trustee Bill is approached by John, an influential parent and community member who tells him the 2nd grade teacher is not doing her job. He says his son’s math performance is only up to grade level with extra tutoring by his wife. He asks Bill to do something about it.

  9. Faculty Issue • As a trustee, you receive a mailgram signed by the entire faculty expressing disapproval of the firing of a long term teacher and demanding a meeting with all the trustees. The Head has fully informed the board of the decision and has used the advice of the Executive Committee to work out timing and terms of the dismissal, knowing it would be unpopular with the faculty.

  10. Trustee Issue • Trustee Tom, a major donor, does not agree with the board’s recent decision to revise the financial aid policy to better align with the mission of seeking a diverse student body. He calls a meeting with other parents to share his outrage at the board investing more funds to attract certain students when there is no problem filling the seats with full pay students. The board chair hears about it from a parent who felt uncomfortable with the conversation.

  11. Board Issue • Trustee Sam, a big donor, is disruptive at every meeting. While engaging in side conversations, he doesn’t hear what’s going on and then makes comments unrelated to the conversation. He also shares his “aha moments” the minute they occur to him even if the conversation has moved on. He is always most interested in the operational detail and is full of suggestions for the Head.

  12. Leadership Issue • At Blue Skies School, the board spent its retreat setting annual goals for the first time since receiving a disappointing short accreditation. One major decision was to scrap the unfinished strategic plan that has taken 2 years of work by Trustee Tim. They decide to start over to plan an inclusive process. After the meeting, Tim calls Sue, the board chair, to convince her to let him finish the plan. Sue announces in an email to the Head and board that Tim will continue his work.

  13. Resources Chait, Richard P., Thomas P. Holland, and Barbara E. Taylor, The Effective Board of Trustees, Phoenix, AZ: The Onyx Press, 1993. Chait, Richard P., William P. Ryan, and Barbara E. Taylor, Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,2005. DeKuyper, Mary Hundley, Trustee Handbook: A Guide to Effective Governance for Independent School Boards, Washington, DC: National Association of Independent Schools, 2003. Howe, Fisher, Welcome to the Board: Your Guide to Effective Participation, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1995. Robinson, Maureen K., Nonprofit Boards That Work: the End of One-Size-Fits-All Governance, New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2001.

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