6/1/09

Columbus Dispatch

Simone Sebastian  

There’s a warning halfway through the state auditor’s commentary on Columbus schools’ 2008 financial review, the district’s cleanest in years.

Auditor Mary Taylor wrote that the school board’s oversight method could lead to “errors, irregularities or misappropriations of board funds.”

The board had not reviewed details of the district’s various funds during the past year, the letter stated. It pointed to the board’s bird’s-eye approach to financial oversight, one vastly different from what existed in the Columbus school district just a few years ago, when board members reviewed finances and contracts with a fine-toothed comb.

Columbus school-board members say that’s progress; their new leadership policy gives the district’s top administrators breathing room to make basic financial decisions. But some in the community fear that the board’s new method of operation is undemocratic and risky.

The school board began using a leadership approach called “policy governance” in 2006, transforming how it operates and communicates — both with the district’s top administrators and the public.

Policy governance is praised nationally for creating well-behaved and focused school boards. Created by business-leadership expert John Carver, the model says boards should define the goals, or “ends,” of their organizations and leave the means up to the chief executive officers, or superintendents.

Supporters say that clears the way for changes that can lead to academic and financial improvements.

But critics argue that policy governance hands too much power to the superintendent, depletes the school board’s oversight ability and cuts back on how much information makes its way to the public — the people who elected the board to take charge.

“It’s the lazy man’s way of running government,” said Brian Dey, a former school-board member in Wisconsin who protested the adoption of policy governance there. “It didn’t give me the level of detail you need to run an operation of that size.”

More school districts nationwide have been adopting the model, although some have dropped it, finding it ill-suited for a public body.

Ann Allen, an assistant professor at the Ohio State University School of Educational Policy and Leadership, noted that the original intent of school boards was to provide citizens a voice in the operation of the districts.

“I like that it focuses the board … so you don’t have seven people that are micromanaging,” Allen said of the approach. “But there’s question whether (policy governance) does enough for the representative role that citizens play on those boards.”

The Columbus school board’s new policies forbid members from publicly criticizing the superintendent or staff. “Criticize privately, praise publicly,” the policy states.

The model also requires that board members speak with one voice. Individuals can voice their opinions during meetings, but after a vote, any discussion or airing of opposing opinions is forbidden.

“It creates a team environment,” said school board President Carol Perkins. “If you don’t have that in any situation, that could produce dissension.”

When the Columbus board recently had vacancies to fill before elections, applicants were told they must subscribe to policy governance. Current members have not spoken out against the model, but candidate Micheal Wiles said he disagrees with it.

The model has been controversial elsewhere.

An outside investigation into an unreasonably expensive contract in Dey’s former district in Wisconsin took issue with the “broad discretion” given to the superintendent of the Racine Unified School District, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

After policy governance was adopted in Columbus, the school board nixed bimonthly financial committee meetings, where contracts and other financial documents were examined before the whole board voted on them. Now, the board typically gets only three or four sentences of information on an item before making financial decisions.

Former board President Terry Boyd , who pushed to launch policy governance in Columbus and has been making presentations about it to other area school boards, says the district is better protected from financial problems than under its old method of operation.

“You can have a (financial committee), but unless that committee is made up of accountants, the committee is only sitting there listening to whatever the financial people are telling them and, at best, using common sense on whether or not whatever they are doing is appropriate,” Boyd said.

Under policy governance, the board defines what the superintendent and treasurer can and can’t do, such as make a decision that embarrasses the board. Boyd acknowledges that the policy is broad but says the strength is in the consequences for breaking it.

“It’s immediate grounds for termination,” he said.

ssebastian@dispatch.com

Since adopting policy governance, the board nixed bimonthly financial meetings, where contracts were examined.