Board Chair
Equipping Workshop
WHAT ARE PARTICIPANTS SAYING?
About the workshop
Purpose
The Board Chair Equipping Workshop is designed to equip new Board Chairs with the insights and skills to lead their Boards effectively in their primary responsibilities of mission preservation, ensuring school stability and longevity, strategic planning, and creating a strong and effective relationship with the Board’s sole employee, the Head of School.
Structure
Recognizing that Board members and Board Chairs are volunteers with busy lives, this cohort is structured to deliver the maximum content in the shortest period of time. As a six-week intensive, this workshop will meet every Thursday night from 7:30 to 9:00 Eastern, February 10, 2022 through March 17, 2022. In addition to an in-depth study of the Board’s primary responsibilities and functions, you will gain key insights into that most often asked question: “What are other Boards doing?” as you develop relationships with Board Chairs from other Classical, Christian schools around the nation.
Meet Your Leader
Leslie Moeller,
Board Chair of SCL
Leslie Moeller is the current Chairman of the Board of the Society for Classical Learning, former Chairman of the Board of the Geneva School of Boerne, current Board member of New Covenant Schools, former Head of Upper School at The Covenant School, and former Head of School at Geneva School of Boerne. Leslie has used her broad experience in teaching, administrative, and governance of classical, Christian schools as the basis for her consulting work with boards across the nation over the past 12 years.
Syllabus overview
Session 1: The Importance of the Board Chair
This first session will focus on understanding the impact of the Board Chair on the Head and on the Board. You will learn why the relationship between the Chair and the Head is critical to the work of the Head and through the Head, to the health of the school. We will also explore the Chair’s responsibility to foster a healthy, responsible Board both through processes, such as strategic planning, the annual agenda, and key committees; and through relationships which impact the “personality” of the board and its approach to discussion and decision making.
Session 2: The Importance of the Head
In this second session, you will gain insight into the realities of the Head’s day-to-day work and the complexities of leading a 21st Century private, faith based school. You and your fellow Board Chairs will also focus on how a Board effectively and appropriately supports and evaluates the school’s most important employee, through a key Board committee: the Head Support and Evaluation Committee.
Session 3: Perpetuating and Evaluating the Board
Our third session will shift its focus to the core responsibilities of Board members. You will explore the key characteristics of a good board member and a good board. Once again, you will learn about processes and structures that support a healthy function such as annual board commitments, new member on-boarding, ongoing board education, and annual board self-evaluation. You will also explore the relational side of encouraging and holding your fellow board members accountable.
Session 4: Understanding the Financial Realities of Private School, Tuition, and Competitive Advantage
The fourth session will focus on the financial realities that drive all private school budgets and the implications for your Board’s long term planning. You and your fellow Board Chairs will discuss and debate the financial realities of school budgets, tuition setting and growth; as well as the drivers of student and parent satisfaction and mission buy-in. We will also explore the importance of determining your school’s competitive advantage before making tuition and programmatic decisions.
Session 5: Mission Delivery through Strategic Planning and Strategic Financial Planning
Your board’s first priority is the long term delivery of the counter-cultural mission of your school. This fourth session will focus squarely on this responsibility. We will look at the disciplines that shape success and the forces that will challenge our schools’ stability, the fundamental prerequisite to effective mission delivery. The key focus of our work this week will be understanding the factors that equip a school to deliver its mission over time and the Board’s role in ensuring those drivers are healthy.
Session 6: Putting it all into Practice:
After five weeks of studying best practices, you will now have a team to work alongside you as you put them into practice during the annual cycle of your Board’s work. Our last session will focus on your annual calendar as we discuss the practicalities of running effective Board meetings, ensuring sufficient Board education, planning for the annual Board retreat, and starting and ending each school year well with your Head.
TOTAL COST
ASPIRING HEADS WORKSHOP
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$679 Regular Price
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Meeting Length: 60-90 min
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Homework: 20-30 min per week
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Duration: 6 Weeks
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Max Enrollment: 12
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Dates: February - March 2022
other scl resources
SCL Cohorts
Cohorts are year-long or multi-year mentorship learning groups led by veteran school leaders with expertise in their field. Groups are limited to 8-10 members - the ideal size to form genuine connections. Access the vital support you need to serve your school with excellence.
Events
Events grant us the opportunity to gather. As incarnational beings, nothing is better than being together. So having the chance to gather with like-minded classical Christian educators is a rich opportunity. That’s why so many of us return to SCL events year after year. Make SCL events part of the rhythm of your year. Click to learn more about our Summer Conference in June, Arete & Alcuin Fall Retreat in October, and Winter Symposium for Heads & Boards in February.