Board Watch Report Card

March-May 09 Progress:

The Board Watch volunteers’ feedback resulted in an overall B- for this period, which is an overall improvement from last period’s C+.

We thank the Board for their positive response to the first set of grades. Agenda review packets are now available online prior to meetings, more volunteers have been able to access meetings and have appreciated the Board’s efforts to make their governance process clearer for the public. The result has been an improvement in transparency, which is reflected in change from a B- to B+ in this period’s grades. Moving forward, we still encourage better signage at the front door and ask for the Board’s consideration in using public hearings to exchange information with the public and moving the meeting to a location that would enable more of the public to observe deliberations first hand.
For each report period, the overall grade is made up of the following components for each of the 5 indicators of good governance:

• Focus and Mission: The score was maintained at a C+ and represents volunteer responses to whether or not the board managed its time well, focused on its own goals, and focused on improving student achievement.
• Transparency: The score improved to a B+ and represents volunteer responses to whether they felt welcome at the meeting, could gain access to the meeting and were able to obtain and agenda and meeting related materials.
• Conduct: The score dropped to a C+ reflecting volunteer feedback on how the board handled differences of opinion and whether or not comments were solution oriented vs. sarcastic or accusatory.
• Role clarity: The score dropped to a C reflecting volunteer feedback on the extent to which the Board exercises its role in planning for implementing policies and strategies to achieve the district’s goals vs. focusing on individual programs, line items, and routine administrative tasks..
• Competency: The score was maintained at a C+ reflecting volunteer feedback on how prepared the board was for meetings and whether or not they based decisions on facts, research, and effective practices.

Progress Per Meeting:

An interesting observation about the graph below is that competency, role clarity and conduct appear to follow one another, which is evidence of a relationship between the three.

Therefore, having more conversations related to district-wide planning that are based on facts, research and effective practices can be a way to improve the scores of competency, role clarity and conduct.

A+ Schools’ Recommendations:

We recognize the challenge that is created by the PA School Code in the number and type of tasks that local school boards are required to include in their legislative agendas. Pittsburgh Public School Board of Directors, however, has already taken a step in clarifying its role as a policy making body in its own Code of Conduct, despite the fact that the state has not provided that clarification in the school code. We ask, however, that the Board take their definition one step further. Given the observational information that has been recorded and analyzed and the scores that the Board has earned for the months of March-May of 2009, A+ Schools makes the following recommendations in regards to Role Clarity:

• As a Board, raise the level of conversation to be about planning for how to achieve your goals rather than primarily reacting to specific expenditures, programs and other routine administrative details. 
• Designate specific time in the meeting structure to have more proactive discussions about strategy and planning and follow up on suggestions for policy reviews that arise from board members
• Support a proposed change to the PA School Code that clarifies the leadership and policy making role of the Pittsburgh Public Schools Board. 

It is through these changes that we believe the Pittsburgh Public School Board can step up as a leader in the state in effective governance.  By clarifying the Board’s role and taking a proactive approach towards planning for the district to achieve its goals as a part of the monthly agenda, Pittsburgh Public Schools could reach an even deeper and more sustainable level of school reform.

What You Can Do

Volunteer for Board Watch
Contact your School Board Member
Testify at a Public Hearing
Attend or Watch a School Board Meeting

For More Information

May 2011 Report Card
February 2011 Report Card
November 2010 Report Card
August 2010 Report Card
May 2010 Report Card
February 2010 Report Card
November 2009 Report Card
June 2009 Report Card
March 2009 Report Card

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