Mad at the Board

[Anonymous]

At my children’s school, the current Board President does not appear to have relevant professional experience, though her family has made major donations to the institution. Several parents raised concerns two years ago when the Board hired the current Head of School, who had a negative reputation from a prior position. Despite those concerns, the Board moved forward with the hire.

Fast forward two years: the Board has now decided not to renew his contract, likely due to performance issues. He will remain for one more year; the year after that, the school will have an interim Head of School, adding yet another transitional year. In total, the school will end up with about four years of transitional leadership, which seems unusually long and potentially destabilizing.

My concern is that the same leadership that hired the Head of School is now responsible for selecting the next permanent one. I don’t have confidence in the Board’s decision-making process based on recent outcomes, and there is little transparency around how decisions are made or how accountability is enforced.

My question is: what can parents constructively do—instead of moving their children to another school—to help ensure stronger oversight and governance going forward? Ideally, I’d like to see guardrails in place so that major decisions aren’t driven by a small group without broader input or checks and balances.

Thoughts on how to advocate for better governance practices would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I’m at the school in question and agree with your lack of confidence in the decision making of the board (though I wouldn’t say I’m “mad at the board”). I also share your concerns about the instability it causes the school.

I hope this thread is constructive and doesn’t get side railed by other grievances with the school as happened in other threads…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my children’s school, the current Board President does not appear to have relevant professional experience, though her family has made major donations to the institution. Several parents raised concerns two years ago when the Board hired the current Head of School, who had a negative reputation from a prior position. Despite those concerns, the Board moved forward with the hire.

Fast forward two years: the Board has now decided not to renew his contract, likely due to performance issues. He will remain for one more year; the year after that, the school will have an interim Head of School, adding yet another transitional year. In total, the school will end up with about four years of transitional leadership, which seems unusually long and potentially destabilizing.

My concern is that the same leadership that hired the Head of School is now responsible for selecting the next permanent one. I don’t have confidence in the Board’s decision-making process based on recent outcomes, and there is little transparency around how decisions are made or how accountability is enforced.

My question is: what can parents constructively do—instead of moving their children to another school—to help ensure stronger oversight and governance going forward? Ideally, I’d like to see guardrails in place so that major decisions aren’t driven by a small group without broader input or checks and balances.

Thoughts on how to advocate for better governance practices would be appreciated.

+1. Totally agree.

[Anonymous]

You need to start by finding out what the governance practices are. How long are board terms? What is the recruitment process? How long are the officer terms and how are nominees chosen? Also, what is the makeup of the board? Current parents, alum parents, alums, others?

Presumably there was a search committee for the previous HOS search and will be one for the next search? Who is/was on that committee? How were those people chosen? What search firm are they using? Same as last time? New?

All of these are questions with answers. Until you have these answers, I'm not sure you can figure out what, specifically, to be concerned about.

[Anonymous]

As an outside observer who has watched countless Maret threads get locked and deleted in recent months, y’all are nuts. Your HoS probably said to himself that this job just isn’t worth the aggravation. So you come here wondering what you can do to force a better decision from your search committee and your board? Thats rich.

Look at this HoS as having been your interim- which probably would’ve been a really good idea of following a 30 year head- and now there’ll be a whole new pool of applicants, and maybe a better fit is available this time.

But I also don’t think any HoS will be successful there until they’ve endured several years of vitriol, and until enough current families graduate to the point where the school becomes filled with families that did not know previous heads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an outside observer who has watched countless Maret threads get locked and deleted in recent months, y’all are nuts. Your HoS probably said to himself that this job just isn’t worth the aggravation. So you come here wondering what you can do to force a better decision from your search committee and your board? Thats rich.

Look at this HoS as having been your interim- which probably would’ve been a really good idea of following a 30 year head- and now there’ll be a whole new pool of applicants, and maybe a better fit is available this time.

But I also don’t think any HoS will be successful there until they’ve endured several years of vitriol, and until enough current families graduate to the point where the school becomes filled with families that did not know previous heads.

Not a very constructive comment.

[Anonymous]

I know that OP doesn’t want to switch schools. However, school governance documents and board composition can be very difficult to change, especially in the short term. I suppose you could advocate for a search committee to form for the head search. However, these are often advisory in nature.

Board/school reputations often affect head searches as well. I once worked for a school that got a small number of so-so candidates during a head search. Later, I learned that both Carney Sandoe and the board had trouble finding people to apply.

[Anonymous]

We are at the same school as OP and treasure the community but are troubled with the board.

I think the board president needs to resign and the majority board should be reconstructed in order to facilitate future trust.

They made a mistake. Own it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are at the same school as OP and treasure the community but are troubled with the board.

I think the board president needs to resign and the majority board should be reconstructed in order to facilitate future trust.

They made a mistake. Own it.

Would it be possible for parents to request this? What I find problematic is that the president of the board behaves as the owner, she is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an outside observer who has watched countless Maret threads get locked and deleted in recent months, y’all are nuts. Your HoS probably said to himself that this job just isn’t worth the aggravation. So you come here wondering what you can do to force a better decision from your search committee and your board? Thats rich.

Look at this HoS as having been your interim- which probably would’ve been a really good idea of following a 30 year head- and now there’ll be a whole new pool of applicants, and maybe a better fit is available this time.

But I also don’t think any HoS will be successful there until they’ve endured several years of vitriol, and until enough current families graduate to the point where the school becomes filled with families that did not know previous heads.

Not a very constructive comment.

No, you just don’t like what I had to say. But this is the way you approach everyone that doesn’t agree with you on your numerous deleted posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at the same school as OP and treasure the community but are troubled with the board.

I think the board president needs to resign and the majority board should be reconstructed in order to facilitate future trust.

They made a mistake. Own it.

Would it be possible for parents to request this? What I find problematic is that the president of the board behaves as the owner, she is not.

Add this to the list of questions the PP above provided regarding governance. If you think there are enough parents who feel as you do, then form a group and go get the answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are at the same school as OP and treasure the community but are troubled with the board.

I think the board president needs to resign and the majority board should be reconstructed in order to facilitate future trust.

They made a mistake. Own it.

Another family weighing in here, and I agree completely. I was disappointed that the HOS was leaving and creating the resulting uncertainty and instability, but I'm even more disappointed in the lack of transparency from the Board about this all. They clearly made a mistake in selecting this HOS. If that's not the case, explain why. If it is in fact what happened, own it and tell parents how you will do better in this next search. The fact that they weren't proactive in planning a town hall, parent/Board meeting or listening session, etc. tells me they're resting on their laurels and planning business as usual, and that's really unfortunate. They had time to go out and pick a new interim head of school to include in the carefullly orchestrated announcements, but parents get a "we'll be in touch after Thanksgiving with more"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an outside observer who has watched countless Maret threads get locked and deleted in recent months, y’all are nuts. Your HoS probably said to himself that this job just isn’t worth the aggravation. So you come here wondering what you can do to force a better decision from your search committee and your board? Thats rich.

Look at this HoS as having been your interim- which probably would’ve been a really good idea of following a 30 year head- and now there’ll be a whole new pool of applicants, and maybe a better fit is available this time.

But I also don’t think any HoS will be successful there until they’ve endured several years of vitriol, and until enough current families graduate to the point where the school becomes filled with families that did not know previous heads.

Not a very constructive comment.

No, you just don’t like what I had to say. But this is the way you approach everyone that doesn’t agree with you on your numerous deleted posts.

“That’s rich” = not constructive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at the same school as OP and treasure the community but are troubled with the board.

I think the board president needs to resign and the majority board should be reconstructed in order to facilitate future trust.

They made a mistake. Own it.

Another family weighing in here, and I agree completely. I was disappointed that the HOS was leaving and creating the resulting uncertainty and instability, but I'm even more disappointed in the lack of transparency from the Board about this all. They clearly made a mistake in selecting this HOS. If that's not the case, explain why. If it is in fact what happened, own it and tell parents how you will do better in this next search. The fact that they weren't proactive in planning a town hall, parent/Board meeting or listening session, etc. tells me they're resting on their laurels and planning business as usual, and that's really unfortunate. They had time to go out and pick a new interim head of school to include in the carefullly orchestrated announcements, but parents get a "we'll be in touch after Thanksgiving with more"?

I think the board is trying to save face, but the situation feels extremely unfair. Why should the board remain in place if they are not accountable and parents are dissatisfied with their performance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at the same school as OP and treasure the community but are troubled with the board.

I think the board president needs to resign and the majority board should be reconstructed in order to facilitate future trust.

They made a mistake. Own it.

Another family weighing in here, and I agree completely. I was disappointed that the HOS was leaving and creating the resulting uncertainty and instability, but I'm even more disappointed in the lack of transparency from the Board about this all. They clearly made a mistake in selecting this HOS. If that's not the case, explain why. If it is in fact what happened, own it and tell parents how you will do better in this next search. The fact that they weren't proactive in planning a town hall, parent/Board meeting or listening session, etc. tells me they're resting on their laurels and planning business as usual, and that's really unfortunate. They had time to go out and pick a new interim head of school to include in the carefullly orchestrated announcements, but parents get a "we'll be in touch after Thanksgiving with more"?

I mean, either you can be upset the HOS is leaving or upset they chose poorly, but you shouldn’t be both.

It could be the HOS is leaving because the parents are impossible.