School boards: Governing or managing body?

School boards have many responsibilities — from hiring the district superintendent and prioritizing and approving the district’s budget to managing the collective bargaining process for the district’s employees and establishing a vision that reflects the overall goals of the community, school staff, and board.

Often, their role is identified and viewed as just that of a governing board, but understanding a school board’s managing authority (which is legislatively mandated) is important too.

In fact, Minnesota law states that “the care, management, and control of independent districts is vested in a board of directors, to be known as the school board.” [Emphasis added]

The school board “must superintend and manage the schools of the district; adopt rules for their organization, government, and instruction; keep registers; and prescribe textbooks and courses of study.” [Emphasis added]

And here: “The board’s authority to govern, manage, and control the district…” [Emphasis added]

State statute even says that a school board member “shall receive training in school finance and management…” [Emphasis added]

A school board is a body elected to represent district residents and govern and manage public schools. Governance duties typically include creating and implementing policies and setting standards for student performance. Management duties typically include hiring and dismissing staff (such as the superintendent, principals, and classroom teachers), approving the annual budget, and monitoring expenditures. School boards also oversee and manage curriculum development and implementation.

School board members can (and do) delegate management duties out, say, to administration. For example, through school policy, the school board delegates authority to the superintendent to make school closure decisions related to hazardous weather or other emergency conditions (it wouldn’t make sense to try and convene a six-member board to decide this in the middle of the night). Anything the school board delegates it can take back.

Understanding a school board’s governing and managing authorities is important, not only for the school board itself but also for the district, students, and community as a whole it serves.