And Now For A "School Board"

We will attempt to summarize a meeting last evening that has been some time in the making. The school desperately needs an oversight committee of some sort to assist the Director with a long list of management issues. The oversight committee is commonly called a Board of Education in North America. Here, it is referred to as a Junta. Four women were asked by the senior pastor to consider appointment to the Junta. Last night the four gather along with the Director, an assistant pastor in charge of church administration, MJ’s co-teacher who acts as translator and us.
The meeting was excellent! The four potential Junta members, who all have some education experience, asked excellent questions about a model I had written. The model, translated into Spanish, consisted of about four pages of basic responsibilities of the Junta, how meetings should be conducted, and necessary orientation points for the individual members. After two hours of reviewing the model, asking questions and discussing some of the points, the group agreed to meet again next Thursday evening.
Now I am in a strange situation. I have attended and participated in hundreds of board meetings in the last 30 years. Now when I am faced with initiating a board meeting process, I am not sure what to advise. The structure was always provided before. Establishing a board meeting process in a culture which is not familiar with this as well as with people who have no experience, is indeed a challenge.
We will start with what is valid and what is not allowed in such meetings. It comes down to clarifying what the authority domain of the board is as opposed to the authority domain of the school administration.
Secondly, we will outline an agenda structure. The agenda has to include a number of items that as as prompts to remind all concerned that these matters should be discussed. For example, the budget is not really made out. We just spend until the kitty is empty and the church is asked to pick up the deficit. Monthly budget status reports are a must. This example is one of about eight things that must be discussed monthly.
We have also outlined a list of about 15 items that are major issues facing the school at the moment. In the past, items that may be on this list were resolved by default or became a crisis that took various tolls. Proactive school administration is a new concept here.

More to come on this topic in another week.