School Board Report Cards? Does anyone grade them?

Do school boards get report cards? No

Are school boards evaluated? No (unless they do it themselves)

Are school boards accountable? Sort of….the directors are elected so if people don’t like their performance they can vote them out every 4 years

In this article we’ll explore some possible ways local communities might go about evaluating school boards and holding them accountable.

In Washington State every school district (295 of them) MUST belong with the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) and pay a fee based on a formula (the larger the district the more they pay). The WSSDA represents the school districts with the State Legislature and acts as a lobbyist. Among the services WSSDA offers is an online tool for school boards to do a “self-evaluation”. This is totally optional. Here is a link to the page, at WSSDA, that describes the self assessment system: http://www.wssda.org/LeadershipDevelopment/OnlineBoardSelf-Assessment.aspx

How do you know if a school board did a self-evaluation? Answer: You don’t. It’s not information which is made available to the public…UNLESS…you file a Public Information Request with the WSSDA (Washington State School Directors Association). Having learned this we set about gathering some information on school boards in Southwest Washington State. [You can do this yourself for any district or group of districts]

Investigation

We filed a Public Information Request with the WSSDA asking for information on any school districts in Southwest Washington State that had used the Online Board Self Assessment tool in the past three (3) years. We finally managed to get a response. Let’s start with some documents:

1. What are the WSSDA Standards? WA_State_Individual and Entire board standards WSSDA
2. What questions/topics does the “self assessment” contain?  WA_State_2016 SA Survey Questions

Next we asked for any testing records (in the last 3 school years) for the following districts: [Click the link/s below to see the results of the three who did the self assessment]

• Green Mountain – Green Mountain_12.01.2016
• La Center – Not used
• Ridgefield – Not used
• Battle Ground – Battle Ground_10.03.2016
• Evergreen – Evergreen #114_12.01.2016
• Vancouver – Not used
• Hockinson – Not used
• Camas – Not used
• Washougal – Not used

Thoughts/Questions:

1. Why have only three (3) of the nine (9) districts in SWW done a self assessment in the past three years?
2. Why don’t the Boards make this information available to the public?
3. Are the “self assessments” accurate and honest?
4. Should there be a Public Report Card for School Boards?
5. What would you like to see school boards evaluated on?

Give one (or more) of these a read and then share your thoughts with us. What do you think of their “self-evaluation”?