A study of school board member concerns in selected K-12 American sponsored overseas schools

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the views of school board members in selected K - 12 American Sponsored Overseas Schools in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean as to their concerns and the relationship of those concerns to the variable citizenship.

A questionnaire was mailed to 148 school board members in 16 schools in nine countries. A return rate of 56.1% of the school board members was obtained.

The survey used in this study was divided into two parts. Part I of the survey gathered personal information about the school board members. Part II sought to obtain school board members’ views about the school’s organization, school board role and responsibilities, curriculum and instruction, staff and parents, and concerns. Cross-tabulation procedures and frequency distributions were used to report the data.

The analysis of host country and United States citizens responses revealed that beliefs regarding the concerns of the school are not generally divided along the lines of citizenship. There were differences reported between the citizenship groups in the areas of mission of the school, enrollment projection, tuition rate for host country students, satisfaction with physical facilities, similarity in academic requirements to United States schools, compensation of foreign hire teachers, substance abuse programs and the extra-curricular activity program.

The recruitment of good teachers was rated as the number one concern of both citizenship groups. Tuition increases and school finances were also rated as number one concerns by many of the school board members.