School board leadership

Abstract

Local school boards and their presidents provide Americans with the grass roots leadership for public education. Both have been ignored by policy makers and authors.

The purpose of the study was to solicit school board members', school board presidents', and past presidents' perceptions of the role as well as the real and ideal leadership attributes of their school board presidents.

A survey method was utilized to address the questions inherent in the purpose. The population for this study included the members of local public boards of education in the U.S. The sampling frame consisted of local school board members holding membership in the National School Boards Association. A random stratified sample was selected.

Descriptive procedures were used to summarize the data. Additionally, the relationships between school board presidents', past presidents', and board members perceptions and selected demographic variables (i.e. geographic region, gender, community type, school system enrollment, age, number of terms served, education attainment, race, method president is chosen) was explored using cross-tabulation procedures. The response rate was about 27%.

School board members perceive their school board presidents to be most active in the board room. Ideally, school board members perceive an expanded role for their president that includes services to board members and superintendent relations. School board presidents perceive a greater role for the school board presidents than do school board members that includes the highly visible board room roles as well as board member services and superintendent relations activities. Past school board presidents' views differ widely from those of school board presidents and slightly from board members, and in most cases tend to give a lower rating of the board president.

School board members, school board presidents, and past presidents perceive their school board presidents as displaying few of the leadership attributes of traditional leaders. They agree that ideally these leadership attributes are critical or important.

Differences concerning the board president's real and ideal role and real and ideal leadership attributes were found among board presidents by gender and school system enrollment; among past presidents by school system enrollment, and method president is chosen; and among school board members by geographic region, gender, age, school system enrollment, and education attainment.

Results should assist school superintendents and professional educators, school board presidents, school board members, and the general citizenry as they work to clarify their respective roles.