Independent School Leadership: Heads, Boards and Strategic ...

Independent School Leadership: Heads, Boards and Strategic Thinking

Troy Baker, Stephen Campbell and Dave Ostroff Peabody College at Vanderbilt University May 2015

Credit:

Independent School Leadership: Heads, Boards and Strategic Thinking

2

Independent School Leadership: Heads, Boards and Strategic Thinking

Acknowledgements

This capstone was possible because of generous cooperation from the National Association of Independent Schools. In particular, we appreciate Amada Torres, NAIS Vice President for Studies, Insights, and Research, for her guidance and support.

We are grateful for support, guidance, and expertise provided by Professor Claire Smrekar throughout this process. We also would like to acknowledge Professor Corbette Doyle, who challenged us to reimagine our approach to this project during its infancy. Special thanks also to Professor Will Doyle for his time and insights regarding our statistical analyses.

We are deeply grateful to our friends and colleagues at Lausanne Collegiate School and All Saints' Episcopal School, and particularly to our Heads of School, Stuart McCathie and Dr. Tad Bird, for their support and patience throughout this endeavor.

Many individuals have also made this report possible, including more than 800 respondents from NAIS member schools who completed our survey in October, 2014. We are deeply grateful to School Heads and Board Chairs who gave their time to be interviewed. These men and women were engaged and candid in sharing lessons of board governance and leadership at their respective schools.

On a personal note, we thank our spouses - Lisa, Lori, and Miki - who have been encouraging and patient throughout this process. We are grateful for their unwavering support and partnership.

Independent School Leadership: Heads, Boards and Strategic Thinking

3

Table of Contents

List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. 5 List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... 6 Executive Summary .................................................................................................................. 7 Section 1: Introduction and Context ........................................................................................ 11 Section 2: Design and Methods ............................................................................................... 18 Section 3: Site Descriptions ..................................................................................................... 32 Section 4: Findings ................................................................................................................... 40 Section 5: Discussion ................................................................................................................ 69 Section 6: Recommendations ................................................................................................... 78 Section 7: Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 82 References ................................................................................................................................ 85 Appendix 1: Survey of NAIS Heads and Board Chairs ............................................................ 92 Appendix 2: Interview Protocol ................................................................................................ 103 Appendix 3: Survey Results ...................................................................................................... 106 Appendix 4: Statistical Results (Tables) ................................................................................... 117 Appendix 5: Other Documents ................................................................................................ 122

Independent School Leadership: Heads, Boards and Strategic Thinking

4

List of Tables

Table 2.1 - Comparison of Survey Sample to Survey Population Table 2.2 - Interview Sites Table 4.1 - Preferences and Policies Regarding Current Parents as Trustees and Strategic

Effectiveness Table 4.2 - Capacity to Serve as Fundraising Body and Strategic Effectiveness Table 4.3 - Board as Group of Experts and Strategic Effectiveness Table 4.4 - Orientation, Onboarding and Strategic Effectiveness Table 4.5 - Committees and Strategic Effectiveness Table 4.6 - Strategic Effectiveness Metrics (Finance) and Institutional Performance Table 4.7 - Strategic Effectiveness Metrics (Governance) and Institutional Performance Table 4.8 - Annual Giving at Washington International School (2011-2014) Table 4.9 - Head of School-Board Chair Relationship and Strategic Effectiveness

Appendix 4

Table 1 - List of Committees Table 2 - Board's Roles Table 3 - Board Performance Table 4 - Policies Regarding Parents Table 5 - On Recruiting and Orientation Table 6 - On Strategic Effectiveness Table 7 - On Institutional Performance Table 8 - Head's Roles Table 9 - Industry Sectors Table 10 - Task Forces Table 11 - Terms of Service Table 12 - Board Activities

Independent School Leadership: Heads, Boards and Strategic Thinking

5

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download