As a practicing superintendent I worked with school board committees. In my experience, the board created committees to “advise” me in specific organizational areas such as policy, finance, personnel, and operations. Board members volunteered to serve on committees that appealed to their interests. If no one was interested, then the president assigned a member to serve on a committee. I had good, bad, and ugly experiences with board committees.
A good experience was that I closely collaborated with board members on committee work. This close collaboration often resulted in me having a better understanding of them as board members and as individuals. Another good experience was the different perspectives committee members expressed. Committee work provided a platform for us to explore options related to a specific organizational area. However, I also had some bad experiences.
One bad experience was the violation of the chain of command. The superintendent is the liaison between the board and the staff. If a board member works directly with staff on a committee, then the superintendent is bypassed and the chain of command is broken. Another bad experience was the duplication of task. When I recommended a topic for board consideration there would either be a lengthy recap of the committee’s work, or if support material available to the committee was not reproduced for the entire board, then the board might rubber stamp the recommendation with limited knowledge. Also, in my view there was an ugly aspect to the board committee.
Because a school board committee works directly with the superintendent in a specific organizational area, board members can become intimately involved in management procedures. The end result is either meddling or micro-managing the superintendent. If the board meddles in management procedures or micro-manages the superintendent, then the board’s leadership role changes from governance to management.
A school board committee can have a legitimate and positive function (Carver, 1990), however, once the board allows a committee to usurp either intentionally or unintentionally the superintendent’s administrative role, the board’s ability to properly execute its appropriate governance function suffers.
